Media Roles In A Corrupt Democracy  

In September, three months away, it would be exactly 23 years since the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, was founded. We all recall that the bill setting up the commission was the first major one sent to the National Assembly by President Olusegun Obasanjo, shortly after his assumption of office. At the time, Nigeria was noted as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And the cancer was spreading in both the public and private sectors. Although corruption is a global malaise, in 1999, Transparency International Corruption Perception Index rated Nigeria as the second most corrupt nation in the world. Sadly, recent reports and developments in both our public and private institutions on the issue seemingly indicate that the situation has worsened. And that’s not because the ICPC and its sister agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, have been found wanting. For instance, in the past two decades, not a few public officials have been prosecuted by the ICPC, convicted by the courts and jailed. Yet, the cancer remains malignant. And this malignancy has laid the nation prostrate. Thus, in spite of the stupendous earnings in revenue from crude oil, Nigerians remain poorer. That’s why the country has been declared as the poverty capital of the world.

In this interactive session with the media, several questions are bound to emerge. As the watchdog of society, the only profession assigned a role in the 1999 Constitution, to make government accountable to the people, is the media living up to expectations?

. The press best to describe us as watchdog has been on  for over 150 years. It is time for stock-taking. Let us take a look at the House we have been guarding. Elsewhere in climes where no role has been assigned to the media, Journalists have been described as self-appointed legislators. In our case, however, we have a memorandum of understanding, MoU, with the Nigerian society. This MoU is in the Constitution. It is in Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, under the title Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. So, Mr. Watchdog,  We have been battling against many  political parties. One is even behaving like the Leviathan. It  vowed few years ago  to rule for 100 years. Under the so-called democracy. I have not seen any  internal democracy within the parties, including minor ones, which have practically been emasculated by the Leviathan. Look at the recent primaries members are crying foul over alleged imposition of candidates. “No elections took place, people have been imposed on us,” they claim. Even the last Presidential Election was alleged to have been fraught with astronomical Electoral malpractices.

What happened to your social infrastructure? Why have you replaced your roads with potholes? What happened to water transportation? Stubborn elephant grass has taken over some of the runways of your abandoned airports. Your people are still dying from water-borne diseases because of the absence of potable water. For nearly two decades, you never bothered to invest one Kobo in power supply. Now, you are harvesting power outages. And your self-driven, industrious citizens have no energy for their homes and businesses. Even giant multinationals are closing shop because of the failure of the power sector. Well let us keep our fingers crossed for the execution of the Electricity bill just signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and also the tsunami of retirements that is taking  place in top government positions.

For example, how did the Federal Government arrive at an impasse where it is now borrowing money to pay workers’ salaries? Why until now has the media been unable to unravel the “mystery” behind fuel subsidy? Don’t forget the subsidy palaver has been with us for decades. With the recent removal of subsidy, it has been established that our daily consumption of premium motor spirit is below 20 million litres. Yet, for years we have been hoodwinked into believing that the Nation’s consumption is thrice that volume. In all these reflections on this tiny area of our national life, what immediately comes to mind is that, just like the Nation, the media has been equally laid prostrate.

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Yet, like I mentioned earlier Media practitioners are the only group assigned a role in the Nigerian Constitution;

      – Our job: To hold government accountable to the people;

      – That role requires charting the direction to achieving good standard of living for

          the Citizenry;

      –  That’s a Society where the individual is able to maximize his potential for the good of  all;

      – A fantastically corrupt society like ours cannot reach that goal;

     – Today, in spite of the Nation’s potentials, millions of graduates are jobless;

     – On the heels of that joblessness, the most common word among the unemployed is the jargon, japa;

     – In a group of ten graduates, nine of them are keen on “japaing”;

    – How regularly is the media taking stock of Africans daring the waters of the Mediterranean in rickety boats to reach Europe?

   – Surely, many Nigerians have lost their lives in that bid;

     – They risk their lives because the corrupt have made their country unlivable;

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yet, our leaders loudly proclaim at every opportunity that the future belongs to the youth;

    – Talking of social and economic infrastructures:

     – Considering what the Nation has earned in revenues in the past two decades,

    – There’s no reason why our transportation, education and health systems should be in the decadent states they are in today;

    – Yet, Our Duty is tailor-made:

      -With our stories and broadcasts, we can

      Rescue the nation from the stranglehold of the Corrupt;

      -That was what we did in the days of military tyranny;

      – By Using the media to ask for the strengthening of our public institutions;

      A way must be found to plug the conduits siphoning billions of dollars of public money into private pockets.

    – When the corrupt are cornered by Anti-corruption agencies:

      – They usually fight back;

      -Their weapons are ethnicity, politics, religion and filthy lucre;

      – They must be checkmated.

      – In checkmating the corrupt, the mission and vision of media groups become paramount;

      – And we must equally not lose sight of media ownership;

      – In an era, where funding is a major concern for media houses, reporting and exposing the corrupt is a Herculean task;

     – To thoroughly investigate a story needs proper funding.

– And talking about funding, these are not the best of times for the media.

      – Yet, for the sake of the Nation, the job must be done.

      – There is the need for Collaboration between the media and Anti-corruption agencies;

     -Therefore, in this war ICPC should not limit its interaction to only journalists;

      Going forward in the war against corruption, there’s the need to involve top editors and media proprietors;

      – What obtains now is mutual suspicion between them;

      -That lacuna has to be removed;

      – For there surely is a meeting point between the agencies charged with law enforcement and the media charged with ensuring good governance;

      – For too long, Nigeria has been a political jungle where the corrupt have been making hay to the detriment of the larger society;

      – Can we afford the luxury of a conspiracy of silence? No.

     – For the majorityof 200 million Nigerians:

       – This is the only country they know;

       -When push comes to shove, the corrupt will flee to their safe havens;

       – That is why the nation must be cleansed of its Augean stables;

       -For the benefit of present and future generations.

      – As the Fight intensifies:

      – The Corrupt can have their say, but not their way;

      -They must not be allowed to grow taproot in the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary and the private sector.

               THANK YOU