Founding father of America, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe." In Nigeria today, the press is free and nearly every man is able to read, but all is far from safe. The sudden rush on January 10, 2010, to report the state of health of President Umaru Yar'Adua, after NEXT newspaper finally took the lead on the 49th day of the president's hurried departure from Nigeria, is late. The media houses have acted in a cowardly, unpatriotic manner and their collective failure to provide needed public information at the right time makes them an accomplice to the bad governance in Nigeria.
One day after NEXT reported that President Yar'Adua is brain damaged and had been in that state for more than a month, the rest of the Nigerian media have woken up suddenly, and are dishing exclusives about how the president had been on live support since December.
Suddenly!
What a mix of conspirators and cowards we have in the media in Nigeria today? The Nigerian people have long suspected this particular state and were only waiting on the press to confirm an obvious and logical conclusion. To shame the multi-billion naira Nigeria media establishment, Saharareporters.com actually reported that the president was vegetative weeks before. The media just deliberately and irresponsibly vacated its duty post on this issue.
To start with, NEXT publications cannot be so credited with doing a good job, since it had waited for weeks before coming to terms with its responsibility to the Nigerian public. In spite of the generic failure, NEXT must still be commended for rising above the mentality of fear and self-censorship by releasing the bombshell that must now shake the nation, since the revelation about Mr. Yar'Adua's health has far-reaching implications for the polity in terms of illegalities performed and changes necessary.
The Nigerian people have waited 50 days to know what is going on. 50 days! In every society, the media have this sacred duty to report activities in government quickly, honestly and without fear, bias or favor. In these terms, the media failed woefully. Journalists slept on duty. This is what the Nigerian media should have done: each media organization should have sent a number of reporters to Saudi Arabia, providing up to date reports from the hospital, the Saudi government, the Nigerian community, the Nigerian embassy and the streets of Saudi Arabia regarding whatever is significant to know about their president. In America, there would have been a daily news theme such as "The President in Saudi," or "Dead or Alive," coming every few hours to people's homes, eager to know about their leader.
The Citizens for Nigeria is not so much concerned at this time about the Nigerian political leadership, which has, as usual, no respect for itself, the constitution or the people it serves and has conspired characteristically to hide the truth from the citizens. The political elite is a different subject altogether. However, for the media, which should owe no allegiance to the government and the powerful elite, this is a colossal failure.
The media should use this opportunity to review itself. Self-evaluation by the news media is critical and ineluctable because this is a catastrophic failure capable of causing military intervention in power, civil unrest and political instability.
The Nigeria mass media have served over a century as the protector of public interest, and in fact gained strength from the days of nationalism against the British colonialists. Through successive military dictatorships, the Nigerian press has done a pretty good job. While there have always been bad eggs among the lot, the reputation of the media, particularly the newspapers, has been largely intact.
The Yar'Adua slack should remain a slack. The deadly silence over the true state of the President's health was a conspiracy against the people of Nigeria. Nigerians are raising questions about where the media was on this subject and now have the right to hold the journalists in suspicion and exceptional standards, except the trust the media operators have earned over the years is quickly re-established and reinforced.
It is time for the media to separate itself from the political leadership and lecture the ownership about journalistic duties to the society. The relative freedom being enjoyed now must be taken advantage of to strengthen our democracy, not endanger or weaken it. As for media owners who mill around the seat of power, it is better for them to export sugar or rice and leave the media to those who can run it with integrity.
The media is the last hope for the common man. If we allow it to be hijacked by the selfish and greedy political and retired military elite, Nigeria will not be safe.
Chris Tunde Odediran, for CitizensforNigeria.com
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