Media Accountability and Democracy in Nigeria, 1999-2003

Abstract:

This article discusses the character of the media in Nigeria's Fourth Republic between 1999 and 2003 Employing a case application of mind approach, it highlights as well as analyzes the media's part in insisting on accountability and decorum in Nigeria's notoriously corrupt public life. The media's crusade ran against the country's geopolitical divisions and revived the debate upon the national question as well as the media's have a title to morality. The article draws upon both primary and secondary data to examine the media's part in an emergent democracy.

R?©sum?©: Cet article discute du r??le de m?©dias dans la IVe R?©publique du Nigeria entre 1999 et 2003 Il met en valeur et analyse, en utilisant l'approche de l'?©tude de cas, le r??le de m?©dias dans la demande de responsabilisation et de d?©cence dans la vie publique du Nigeria, r?©put?©e par ailleurs pour sa corruption. La croisade m?©diatique va ?  l'encontre de divisions g?©opolitiques du pays et ravive le d?©bat sur la question d'int?©r??t national, ainsi que sur la moralit?© de m?©dias. L'article s'appuie sur de donn?©es primaires et secondaires pour examiner le r??le de m?©dias dans une d?©mocratie naissante.

Nigeria made the transition to civilian command in 1999 after several abortive transitions underlined by the agency of prolonged military rule and featuring successive dictators who increasingly were pitted against an aroused civil society. Following nationwide elections held between 1998 and early 1999 a rule under the leadership of Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired general, was constituted and was in the saddle for four years. In April 2003 a general election was held, and although its administration was a source of plenteous controversy, it constituted the basis for returning the regulation of General Olusegun Obasanjo to office for another terminus of four years under the American-style presidential a whole favored by the 1999 Constitution.

There is a general scholarly consensus that the 1999 transition, produc through transactions between the rump of the political class and the jaded military elite, was a shallow individual resulting in what some have characterized as transition without change (Ihonvbere 1999:6) As Bayo Adekanye informs us, "The authoritarian regime from which this political division has just transited was not just a barely military-backed one, but specifically military in character, drawn out entrenched in government and with a surfeit of corrupt interests hanging upon to power" (1999:10). The continuing visibility of retired generals with financial muscle in the polity as well as an authoritarian hangover resulting from the lengthy years of military kleptocracy exhibits one dimension of this point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled Other features of a regime, which, following Diamond (1999:2) can be characterized as a "low quality democracy," include debilitating intragovernmental conflicts; a parasitic political class with a rentier, cash-and-carry mentality; pervasive corruption at all horizontals of government in spite of a nominal anticorruption war; as well as the resurgence of ethnic, religious, and communal conflicts.

Documented evidence of the scale of corruption in the polity is provided in a 296-page audit of rule finances for the year 2001 which was not awayed to the National Assembly upon January 17, 2003. The report, prepared by means of the auditor-general, documents "violation of laid down financial manner of proceedings such as over invoicing, payment for piece of works not done, non-retirement of cash advances, faking and alteration of receipts, double debiting and release of cash without authorizations" ( This Day, Jan. 19 2003) It should be recalled, in this connection, that Transparency International has rated Nigeria as single of the world's most corrupt nations for several years now.

Corruption, granting pervasive, is not the sole problem in Nigeria's Fourth Republic. Ethnic competition among its major ethnic clusters namely, Hausas, Ibos, and Yorubas, as well as between the major assemblages and the increasingly restive minorities, remain intractable riddles The period since 1999 has witnessed an intensification of ethnic and religious conflicts and clashes upon such a scale as to occasionally summon forth the ominous prologue to the Nigerian civil war of 1960-1966 The introduction of Shari'a law in several northern states, leading to clashes between Christians collections and Muslims as well as the rise of ethnic militias, are symptomatic of underlying tensions (Babawale 2003; Olukotun 2003a).

The idea of the media as watchdog of the public interest is crucial to democratic theory, whether of the liberal, social, or socialist variety. The Nigerian media are imbued with a self-conscious tradition of outspokennes which at the limits sometimes titter-totters on anarchy. The crusading names of like titles as the Vanguard, the perforate the Guardian, and the Champion testify to a militant pres ideology dating back to the nineteenth hundred As one senior Nigerian journalist deposit it, "The media are charged with the part of holding governments accountable and guarding against the abuse of power, hence the ne to raise countervailing conformations of surveillances to monitor government's activities and main stock an inherent disposition towards excess" (Oseni 1995:3)