Keynote Address on Maiden Empowerment Series Conference by Association of Communication Scholars & Professional of Nigeria, Anambra State Chapter
It was the English writer, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who in 1839 made the immortal statement: The pen is mightier than the sword. This loaded declaration simply means that the written word of communication is more effective than martial violence in solving the diverse issues of mankind. It is a common truism that war is eventually settled on the table of dialogue.
The champions of dialogue between the government and the people happen to be the icons of the media. The Scottish historian and essayist, Thomas Carlyle, in his book On Heroes and Hero Worship remarkably alluded to the Irish statesman and philosopher, Edmund Burke, when describing the press as the Fourth Estate of the Realm thusly: Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.
The pivotal task of a government is to guarantee security, and the medias role in stemming the tide of insecurity cannot be gainsaid. Governments come and go, but the media can never go. According to the legendary Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever. In our own local parlance we say Soldier go; Soldier come; barracks remain. Journalism and journalists are the barracks in this case.
Journalism has been available in Nigeria to record the insecurity from before independence and after. There is the opinion in some quarters that, aside from the time of the civil war, Nigeria as a country has never been more insecure than now. The Nigerian press stood to be counted when Nigeria fought for independence from the British, especially through the newspapers of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. The media held the government to account across the time of the First Republic, the civil war, the years of military dictatorship, and the epochs of civil rule and democracy.
The economic, political, social, educational and cultural aspects of insecurity in Nigeria are daily staples of the Nigerian media. The Niger Delta insurgency, for instance, was writ large in its multiform dimensions in the press which offered the then President Umaru Musa YarAdua the gumption to settle it though the Amnesty Programme.
The Nigerian press raised the necessary alarm following the killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the 39-year-old leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram. This served up a bloodcurdling climax to the sectarian crisis that threatened to overwhelm the security of the Northern States of Nigeria. Yakubus deputy who was arrested two days earlier equally met with brutal death while the headquarters of the terrorists had to be levelled, and the erstwhile zone of their suzerainty was taken over by Nigerian security forces.
The use of brutal force has of course not solved the matter. Force has actually exploded the dimensions of the Boko Haram problem. If the government had hearkened to the words of the press, justice would have been served better through the due process of law and order.
It is emblematic of the controversies surrounding the crisis that the international community has somewhat had to latch on to the reported extra-judicial nature of the killings of the leaders of the fundamentalists. The crises and the killings raise many fundamental questions on the management, or the lack thereof, of Nigerian affairs.
The press had been reporting the activities of the bigoted sect since its inception in 1995, but the security agencies did next-to-nothing until hundreds of Nigerian lives were wasted. The country needs to do with more intelligence and consummate application if it is to have its due day in the sun. It is only when the government works in concert with the press that the tide of insecurity can be stemmed.
For a sect openly preaching the violent introduction of Sharia law across the nation, the Boko Haram folks ought to have been stopped in their tracks a long time ago if the exclusive stories and editorials written by the Nigerian newspapers had been followed up to the letter by the government.
There have been ample investigative reports in the press on the sect that wants a total subtraction of what it calls the evil of Western education from Nigerian life. The danger, as revealed by the press, is that so-called repented members of the sect are being recruited back into the Nigerian security forces. This does not in any way help governmental harmony with the media in stemming the tide of insecurity in the country.
Reading from the pages of the newspapers, it is like the country is at war. The reports from the radio stations and the gory pictures on television make for Thomas Hobbes state of nature in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. The government needs to re-strategize urgently in alliance with the patriotic press to ever be able to put up a good fight in the circumstances.
It is due to the lack of attention being paid to the highlighting by the media of injustice across the country that separatist groups such as the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu are now major issues. While Nnamdi Kanu leads the separatist struggle on the eastern and Igbo front, Sunday Igboho spearheads the fight on the Yoruba and western front. The government can only eventually win through the vehicles of justice and dialogue, as preached by the press, instead of mortars and bayonets.
It has to be stressed that a country that daily terrorises its citizens cannot combat terrorism. Utterly neglected Nigerians only end up as joiners of Kanus IPOB or Sunday Igbohos group because the groups keep providing the jobs even if suicidal – that the government is not providing. The burden of leadership entails that matters like separatism which breeds insecurity must be tackled from the roots.
This leads to what can be called the menace of the so-called New Media that feeds unregulated news to the public that in many cases heighten insecurity across the nation. The citizen journalists of the internet almost always hype up news of the likes of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho, obviously heightening tension in the country.
As opposed to the responsible pre-independence and post-independence mainstream media that had requisite checks and balances, the technology of the new age has made virtually everybody a journalist. This has helped to fuel Fake News and insecurity because of the irresponsibly uninformed stories bandied around from cyberspace.
There are those who have vociferously argued that New Media expands the frontiers of journalism and people’s right to know it all, and that it has actually dealt a formidable blow on censorship and the hitherto iron-fist control on the profession.
It is crucial to now ask the question: Does the use of social media compromise national security or does it enhance it? There can be no defence for the irresponsible use of social media in certain instances, whether in Nigeria or the United States or anywhere. A clear case of the irresponsible use of the social media could be seen in President Donald Trumps role in the Capitol Hill riots in America.
To stem the tide of insecurity, therefore, the social media must be held to account like the mainstream media. The ethics of the profession must necessarily come to bear on the work of all journalists, whether from the mainstream press or the New Media. My take is that instead of calling for outright regulation which may be misread as censorship, there is the need to use the courts to put on trial all erring journalists, especially the irresponsible practitioners of the New Media. Submitting the social media violators of journalism to the rule of law will go a long way in stemming the tide of insecurity. Any violating post can be traced and the poster should be tried and given proper punishment like spending some time in jail.
To give the social media its due, it has helped in the whistleblowing process of fighting insecurity. For instance, in the matter of the Unknown Gunmen scourge, the social media has gone a long way in divulging the identities of the common criminals who hide under the fabric of fighting for self-determination to enjoy the fruits of criminality through kidnapping, murder and ransom payment. The social media helps the insecurity fight through giving ready access to the public to contact the police and the sundry security agencies. The catchphrase is: If you see something, say something!
The government can deploy the vast resources of the internet to better use by aligning with the media enlighten the society. Poverty feeds on ignorance. The lack of education that pushes Nigerian youth to believe all makes of epistles and messiahs must be promptly addressed. Without education these youths are almost always unemployable, and there is no escaping the fact that the idle hands would forever remain the devils workshop. The crusading impetus of journalism will of course be of help greatly in stemming the tide of insecurity.
The media should harp on the vexed issue of lack of real federalism which makes it impossible for a state governor as the chief security of the state to on his own tackle insecurity without having to kowtow to the command of the Inspector-General of Police who only takes orders from the President. There is the urgent need to redress this matter as a way of finding speedier solutions for insecurity upheavals.
In conclusion, insecurity is rife in Nigeria and it is incumbent on the media to stem the tide by properly applying the vital tenets of information, education and entertainment.
Sir Paul Nwosu
Commissioner for Information
Anambra State
