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A Special International Report
Prepared by
The Washington Times
Advertising Department - Published on September 30, 1999
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Sponsors (1) Federal Ministry of Finance
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Press breathes sigh of relief
“The Press – and let me seize this very opportunity to stress this - has been magnificent, really magnificent, heroic, and one of these days, when there’s more pleasure, we are going to erect a statue. I’m going to see personally to this, that a statue for heroism of the press is erected at a prominent place in this country. We must never, ever forget.”
To an outsider reading the headlines of Nigeria’s most popular newspapers it is difficult to imagine that just over a year ago journalists were in fear for their lives. The Nigerian press has clearly breathed a sigh of relief. No longer the targets of official repression and harassment, have found that democracy has journalists renewed their vibrancy and investigative spirit. On any given day, one can read scathing editorials, analysis and criticism of government actions, as well as open allegations of corruption and human rights abuses by former government officials.
“I feel much better as a journalist compared to five years ago,” says Bayo Onanuga, editor in chief of The News, a weekly newsmagazine and an 18-year veteran of the news business. “I feel more relieved, I can dream about stories and really work toward actualizing those stories.”
“It is different now that we have a democratic setting,” Onanuga says. “They can no longer muzzle us as they did before so there is now a lot of leeway for journalists to practice their profession. I could not wish for a better atmosphere than what we have today.”
But along with freedom comes responsibility. Nigerian journalists have often been cited for sensationalism at the expense of professionalism, something many believe will need to be kept in check if democracy is going to thrive with the support of the people.
Addressing a dinner organized for the press shortly after his inauguration, President Olusegun Obasanjo appealed to the audience to be constructive in their criticism. He reminded them there is no freedom without responsibility and accountability and that a successful democracy will require efforts on both sides to ensure it is not derailed.
The concern is that the media will take their freedom beyond the point of acting responsibly, by allowing their own ethnic, religious and cultural beliefs to taint their reports. Such selective reporting could result in half-truths and exaggerations, putting pressure on the government to clamp down on the media and potentially overreact.
A June 7 editorial in Newswatch, a weekly newsmagazine, echoed Obasanjo’s appeal and called for the press to be self-regulating. “This magazine would like to make a special appeal to the politicians and the press. The sustenance of democracy in our country rests on them…The press has a big role to play in nurturing democracy and the democratic culture. Immaturity must give way to mature, sober judgments on national issues now. Sensationalism must be sacrificed on the altar of better image for the profession and the country.”
Refusing to be Quiet
Compared to the rest of Africa, Nigeria’s press was relatively free in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was not until General Mohammadu Buhari seized power in 1983 that controls on the press were tightened. At his first press conference as head of state, Buhari openly warned the press their freedom would be severely proscribed. He backed up his pronouncement in 1984 with the notorious Public Officers (Protection Against False Accusations) Decree No. 4. This act authorized the arrest, detention and trial of journalists and the closure of any medium making “any false statement” or rumor embarrassing to public officers or intended to subject them to ridicule or disrepute.
Two Guardian journalists - Messrs Tunde Thompson (who later became chief press secretary to Vice President Aikhomu in the Babangida years) and Nduka Irabor - found out the hard way. Both were convicted and jailed for one year for reporting a story on the government’s foreign policy before it had been made public. The editor of National Concord, Duro Onabule (later chief press secretary to Babangida) was detained for two weeks.
Columnists, fearing the arbitrary wrath of the military temporarily “went to Afghanistan,” an expression coined by journalist Sonala Olumhense to describe the reporting on less “sensitive” subjects like international events and social issues.
It was not until General Buhari’s ouster by General Ibrahim Babangida in 1985 that the press again began to relax. Eager to consolidate and legitimize his own government, Babangida repealed Buhari’s Decree no. 4 and released the two journalists who had been detained under it. “He earned a lot of goodwill from the people for that act,” Onanuga said.
The romance between Babangida and the Nigerian public continued for the next few years. But while Babangida’s approach to the media appeared more lenient, the honeymoon soon gave way to crackdowns and intimidation. On Oct. 19, 1986, Dele Giwa, editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine was killed by a letter bomb hand delivered by suspected agents of the military government. And, by 1987, Newswatch, Punch, Lagos News, Champion, Vanguard, The Guardian and Concord had all suffered shut downs or detentions of their journalists.
“I remember a headline in 1993 which called Babangida a benevolent dictator,” Onanuga said. “It sounded so strange. The reality that military rulers were mere dictators did not dawn on Nigerians until the 1990s.”
When it did, things began to change. Babangida’s continued reneging on promises to hand over power to civilian rule incited rumors of a hidden agenda and agitation for democracy began in earnest. Almost overnight, the press went from publishing what Onanuga described as “mundane articles” on such issues as cocaine trafficking and malaria, to raising real political issues. “We started to see that the regime was not planning to hand over power so the discourse became very critical,” he explained. “We started raising issues that Nigerians were not raising before.”
In May 1993, the magazine Onanuga was editing was shut down for six months over an article that delved into the workings of Babangida’s regime. Almost immediately, Onanuga and his staff went underground, continuing to publish as a guerrilla press. “They may have shut us down physically but we would never allow ourselves to be shut down as individuals,” he said.
When Abacha came to power on Nov. 17, 1993, many Nigerians believed this newest soldier was a lover of democracy. Indeed, many in the press had openly invited the general to ease out Babangida and restore discipline to the country. The Guardian, a well respected daily newspaper, in an October 1993 editorial called on the military to intervene “as the only national institution that can act as the… honest broker in the process of reconciliation” following the annulment of the June 12 election by Babangida.
But while the Abacha regime often made public declarations supporting freedom of the press, journalists recognized there were limits to what they could say. In January 1994, he had already shown the press his true military colors. The first annual edition of Tell, the most successful and arguably the most critical weekly newsmagazine, was impounded and forced to publish underground. The edition was printed in tablet form and the cat and mouse game began.
“Even if the regime was giving the impression it was free we all knew at the back, hanging in the shadows, was the military man that would come and arrest you and keep you away or snuff the light out of you,” Onanuga explained. “From that day on we became endangered species.”
Periodic shut downs of magazines and newspapers were common. Only those controlled by or which did not rock the ship of state remained untouched. The majority of the press, however, sought middle ground, reporting only hard news void of editorial perspective. Those that did step out of line felt the crack of the whip.
The full force of military authoritarianism came in March 1995 when the government announced it had uncovered a coup plot to overthrow the regime. Among the some forty-four people tried and convicted by a special military tribunal were now head of state General Olusegun Obasanjo, his former deputy General Shehu Yar’ Adua, and four journalists – Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu, Ben Charles Obi and George Mbah. All were sentenced to twenty-five years, later reduced to fifteen, in prison. Popular opinion dismissed the charges as false and accused the regime of fabricating the coup plot to scourge its opponents.
Despite intimidation and outright physical brutality, some sections of the independent press continued to thrive under Abacha. They remained, throughout military rule, at the forefront of civil society’s search and determination to entrench a new Nigerian tradition of transparency, good governance, accountability and morality. Abacha’s death in 1996 afforded them “almost” free reign to pursue their goal.
From Press Repression to Freedom
Nigeria’s political environment changed almost overnight with the succession of General AbdulsalamiAbubakar following Abacha’s death in June 1998. Before the month was out, Abubakar had thrown open the doors to the country’s prisons. Scores of political detainees were released, including the four journalists imprisoned in 1995.
“It was the difference between daylight and darkness,” said Mohammed Haruna, chief press secretary under Abubakar and well-respected journalist. “Everyone could speak his mind. People felt that free. They knew nobody was looking over their shoulders and even if they published something and were wrong nobody was going to lock them up.”
In October, Minister of Information John Nwodo, speaking on behalf of the president, affirmed the administration’s commitment to openness. “The walls of hostility between journalists and government have been pulled down,” he told journalists.
The amicable relationship endured to the end, even when increasingly negative stories about the regime began to appear. Over time, positive coverage on Abubakar’s successful transition program to democracy soured and the focus turned to the regime’s economic policies. Accusations of looting and corruption filled the columns of daily newspapers and magazines.
“Toward the end of our tenure there was nothing that papers did not write about us and not one editor was picked up,” Haruna recalls. The policy, he says, was deliberate. “The government abrogated all the decrees that were against press freedom except Decree No. 2 which dealt with state security. It was never used but it was on standby just in case.”
Onanuga gives the government a clean bill of health. “I went into exile in 1997, came back in August 1998 and never, through the time Abubakar left, was I arrested.”
Independent vs. Free
Lanre Ogundipe praises Abubakar for having freed his colleagues and providing an opening for press freedom. But at the same time, Ogundipe is quick to differentiate between a free press and an independent press. “There was only a semblance of press freedom under military rule,” he said.
Ogundipe traces the difference to the fundamental character of a military regime which, unlike a civilian democracy, was not elected by the people and therefore does not hold itself accountable to them.
“Though there was an opening under Abubakar, at the same time we knew we could not function efficiently under military rule,” explains Ogundipe. “One way or another, the military always had ways to muzzle the press.”
Beyond outright physical intimidation, explains Ogundipe, military governments also practice a more subtle means of gagging the press. They close the door to information.
Without access to government documents, media professionals lack the tools necessary to practice their profession and report on government activities. They become dependent on official pronouncements and press releases to fill the void in essence, reporting only what the state wants reported. “The tendency to gag the press is inherent because the tendency to disseminate the information is not there,” Ogundipe explains. “What comes from the military government are painted stories to suit their agenda. It is all tainted information.” Only when transparency is introduced into the system does he believe the press will gain freedom as well as real independence.
Under democracy, public access to government documents typically increases and with it the ability of the press to freely carry an independent line. But as Haruna points out, that line can be blurred.
As acting editor of the New Nigerian newspaper in the last civilian government under Shehu Shagari, Haruna experienced political censorship firsthand. The freedom of expression he knew under the military government of General Obasanjo in the late 1970s and early 1980s diminished under the democratically elected Shagari government. “In principle no one was going to put you away simply because you said something against the government,” he explained. “That was the theory. But in practice at The Daily Times newspaper, for example – then 60 percent owned by the government –you had a board of directors who were constantly breathing down your neck and saying ‘you have to toe the part line.”
According to Haruna, the editor of The Daily Times had to take his editorials to Shagari’s right hand man who would determine what was acceptable for print.
For his part, Haruna, refused let himself be dictated to and thus believes he paid the price. “They would bring me stories and ask me to publish them. I would look at them on their merit and say ‘look, I see libel here.’ I knew if I published them, at the end of four years the government would not be there and I would be left carrying the can. I knew it wasn’t right so I wouldn’t do it.” His integrity, he said, cost him a scholarship to do his master’s in journalism at Columbia University in New York and a position as substantive editor.
At the same time, Haruna does not believe the censorship was Shagari’s will. He remembers a visit by the now deposed Congolese leader Mobutu Sese Seko. During his visit, a lot of “nasty stories” appeared in the paper. “Mobutu asked Shagari to bring the stories in and have them retracted. There were nastier stories about Shagari but he said ‘I am sorry, in this country we don’t control the press that way.’
“I simply do not think it is as straightforward to say under the military you have it one way and under democracy another,” Haruna said.
President Obasanjo has already indicated transparency and accountability will be a government priority. Following through on that promise, the president empowered all his functionaries to talk to the press and provide them with requested information without consulting with the executive.
But access to information will also require setting up a process for making documents available to the public. According to Ogundipe, that process during the military period was an underground system devised to circumvent the restrictions. “It was a war-like situation where all the documents were obtained through other channels that we will not disclose.”
As journalists recognize opening up the system will take time. Years of corruption in the public sector have made many civil servants anxious about unlocking the filing cabinets, opening the storerooms and generally exposing the actions of their ministries, committees and organizations. “We only pray there is a time when they are disposed to giving documents willingly and without hindrance,” he said. “We still need to work on access to information. But at least there is a relative calm now so we can practice our profession.”
Ironically, democracy may actually slow the process. A system that would have been established immediately by military decree will now have to be established by law. And that will require approval by the National Assembly, a body who, having borne the brunt of press criticism, may not necessarily be disposed to expanding their freedom.
“House members have been complaining a lot about the flack they have been getting from the press,” Haruna said. He predicts a motion to widen press freedom would meet considerable opposition from members tainted by the negative press they have received. “The impression will be that these guys are just asking for greater license. That what they have now they don’t even consider wide enough. So they will fear if they give them more latitude it will be worse.”
In the meantime, Haruna believes the lack of a system only presents a greater challenge to journalists to work hard, shore up their contacts and dig for stories.
“I think we have enough freedom in this country. We may not have a system. But we have a tradition. And that is a tradition that is going to be very hard to kill.”
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Table of Contents (1) It's a new dawn over Nigeria |
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In its role as watchdog over the government, the press is charged with investigating and reporting the truth to ensure effective governance. Under military rule, the rule of law did not apply as the press often suffered at the hands of arbitrary exhibitions of power. With the democracy seemingly on track and the reinstatement of rule of law, the press has been unshackled and is once again free to fulfill its mission as the channel for articulating critical and dissenting views.
According to Lanre Ogundipe, national president of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, this was equivalent to telling the press they could not report on politics because it limited the degree to which a journalist could safely investigate a story. “How could we know what constituted an embarrassment? It was up to their discretion.”
Indeed, most journalists working at the time were touched by the regime’s repressive actions. Onanuga was himself arrested half a dozen times, though never charged once with any crime. Most times he was simply arrested, detained overnight and then released. During his last arrest under General Abacha, however, four men forcefully dragged him down the stairs from his office. He was then driven to jail where he was stripped and thrown into a “cold room” and not released from solitary confinement for three weeks.