THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE NIGERIAN MASS MEDIA IN THE LIBERIAN CONFLICT

THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE NIGERIAN MASS MEDIA IN THE LIBERIAN CONFLICT

 

INTRODUCTION

This study focuses on how the conflicts in Liberia were covered by the Nigerian media. The Nigerian mass media, like all other information media, is involved in obtaining, analyzing, and disseminating information about current topics. This was the case with the Liberian civil war, which was significantly influenced by Nigerian journalists. Independent media was crucial in covering the unexpected military campaigns and their effects throughout the crisis. The Nigerian press also played a significant part in denouncing the military and its actions, and it actually ran a campaign in favor of ending military rule and establishing constitutional rule.

In opposition to Samuel Doe and the Nigerian federal government for the most of the conflict, the Nigerian press had conflicting emotions and qualms about Charles Taylor. The federal government’s apparent support for Samuel Doe’s administration baffled the media. Therefore, other private media outlets and some state newspapers criticized Samuel Doe for provoking the civil war and said that he (Doe) should muster the courage to resign from his position as Head of state for peace to return to Liberia while the federal government tried to use its various media outlets to stir-up sentiments for embattled Samuel Doe. As the transition failed and a fresh wave of repression broke out, it was to pay an even greater price for that.

In journalism, editors or producers frequently provide assistance to reporters while they conduct research and prepare stories for print and electronic publication. The earliest journalists wrote their articles for magazines, newspapers, news sheets, and circulars. In addition to offering comments on politics, economics, and arts and culture, they occasionally have amusing elements like crossword puzzles and comics. Regardless of whether a military or an elected administration is in control, Nigeria’s press has always been a diverse, outspoken institution. It has attempted to serve as a check on those in authority, but occasionally governmental legislation, ethnic, religious, and political influences, as well as its own economic vulnerability and the inadequacies of the men and women who report and comment on the news, have undermined the effectiveness of this effort.

Justification of Research

Despite the fact that the Nigerian Mass Media had a great impact in the Liberian civil war, its efforts in the course of the war has not been sufficiently examined by scholars. Therefore this research is to bring to limelight the major issues in the Nigerian Press coverage of the civil war.

The research revealed the fact that while a few newspapers and particularly some of the independent news weeklies sought a more or less balanced and vigorous coverage of the unfolding crisis in Liberia others performed not as independent arbiters but as partisans in various guises and disguises and consequently they fell victim to the lack of integrity. While these shortcomings continued to constrain the credibility and democratic impact of the most Nigerian Press houses, few showed a resilience and independence of objectives reportage throughout the conflict.

Aims and Objectives

This study’s objectives are to investigate the factors driving Nigerian journalists’ involvement in Liberia while also examining how the mass media in Nigeria has covered the crisis there.
Reveal the mass media’s operating principles and its perspective on conflicts and war
Draw attention to the difficulties the Nigerian media has had reporting on the Liberian civil war.
Examine the media organization’s and the Nigerian journalists’ effects on the Liberian crisis.

Scope of Study

The scope of the research spanned from 1989 when the first phase of the Liberian civil war began till 2003 when the war ended.

CHAPTER ONE

THE NIGERIAN MASS MEDIA: A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 

Facts of current importance are gathered, assessed, and disseminated by the mainstream media. In journalism, editors or producers frequently provide assistance to reporters while they conduct research and prepare stories for print and electronic publication. 1 The earliest journalists wrote their articles for magazines, newspapers, news sheets, and circulars. As a result of technology advancements, journalism has expanded to encompass various platforms like radio, television, the Internet, documentary or newsreel films, and radio. The primary purpose of newspaper publications, which are typically released daily or weekly, is to report news. Readers can also find special information in many newspapers, such as weather forecasts, television listings, and stock price lists. 2 In addition to offering comments on politics, economics, and arts and culture, they occasionally have amusing elements like crossword puzzles and comics. in nearly all cases and in varying degrees, newspapers depend on commercial advertising for their income.

The Development of the Nigerian Press 

Journalism is conceivably the oldest contemporary occupation or career in Nigeria, predating printing. 3 Even before the country of Nigeria was formally established as a nation in 1914, there were indigenous newspaper editors in Nigeria before there were indigenously ordained priests and physicians. 4 The newspaper industry in Nigeria started off slowly in 1859, but it really took off in the 1880s as educated Africans who were refused participation in the governance of the British colony used it as a protest tool. “The press embraced the role of opposition and aimed to challenge the government, promoting political awareness and involvement by giving a way of criticizing the authorities and fostering discontent with official goals and policies,” says the author. 5 The most famous publication of this time, the Lagos Weekly Record, was “a determined agent in the propagation of racial consciousness”6 as well as “an arsenal of ideas” for critics and opponents of government.7

The introduction of democratic elections on the basis of the Clifford Constitution in 1922 added a significant dimension to the role of newspapers, which now became outlets for electoral mobilization and instruments in the fierce campaign against British colonial rule. The first Nigerian daily paper, the Lagos Daily News, was established in this era of electoral politics in 1925.8 The following year, the editorship passed to Herbert Macaulay, widely regarded as the father of Nigerian nationalism.

Although the subsequent decade was a rather placid one for the Nigerian media as it was dominated commercially by the foreign-owned and pro-government Daily Times founded in 1926.9 The vacuum was finally filled in 1937 when Nnamdi Azikiwe launched the West African Pilot. The militantly anti colonialist, anti-imperialist stance of the Pilot and its concepts of news made the newspaper an instant success now impetus to the agitation for independence.10 Subsequently, Azikiwe founded other newspapers across the country, thereby establishing Nigeria’s first newspaper chain.11 By the 1940s, the Pilot had become Nigeria’s most outstanding and influential nationalist newspaper and Azikiwe, the dominant figure in Nigerian journalism. On the founding of the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1944, Azikiwe also became one of the dominant figures in Nigerian politics. The Pilot served as his platforms.12

Another newspaper chain was formed in 1957 when the Daily Service, organ of the defunct Nigerian Youth Movement, merged with the Nigerian Tribune founded eight years earlier to form the Amalgamated Press, ultimately encompassing eight newspapers sponsored by another of Nigeria’s major nationalist political parties, the Action Group (AG).13 These newspapers were launched chiefly for publicity in the crucial national election of 1959 that was to lead to Nigeria’s independence from Britian.14 Thus, as Golding and Elliott put it, “Nigerian journalism was created by anti-colonial protest, baptized in the waters of nationalist propaganda and matured in party politics”15

The party press persisted in Nigeria through the First and the Second Republics in the form of newspapers owned and controlled by political parties or active politicians, or as publicly-financed newspapers that supported and publicized the activities of the government. Hachten found the Nigerian press of 1960-65 in many ways a unique phenomenon for black Africa: diverse, outspoken, competitive and irreverent. While opposition newspapers were silenced elsewhere and one-party conformity imposed, he wrote, “the Nigerian press was almost unfettered”16 Yet, the-newspapers were highly politicized and often “locked in a vicious combat” during major political crises and election campaigns; indeed, Fred Omu writes, “the newspaper press provided a remarkable example of overzealous and irresponsible partisanship and recklessness”17

The prominent nationalist editor and politician Anthony Enahoro was even more scathing in his evaluation of the immediate post-colonial press. The Nigerian press, he said, lacked “men of stature” as well as “the vision to recognize danger and the courage to oppose wrong.” Consequently, “it can inspire no confidence, no respect and no following if its role in nation-building is that of sycophants, guilty of unquestioning deferential support for rulers…flamboyant praise for mediocrity… popularizing excesses and impropriety, afraid to pronounce against wrong and guilty of a craven desire to bat on any winning side.”18

These ailments of opportunism and sycophancy were just as manifest more than a decade later in the press of the Second Republic (1979-83). Press performance in the election campaigns that restored democratic government was unprincipled and tainted with ethnic bias. In the Second Republic, the press found nothing intrinsically right or wrong: it all depended on the political coloration of the actor and the commentator. At numerous points of conflict and controversy in the particularly “the crisis following the 1979 presidential election, the Shugaba Darman deportation incident, the disputed appointment of presidential liaison officers in each state, the Maroko land matter involving Chief Awolowo and the 1983 general elections – most newspapers exhibited blatant and predictable partisanship.”19 Opposition newspapers criticized the government endlessly; government-owned newspapers berated opposition leaders ceaselessly. Olatunji Dare observes that “a newspaper could praise an act by a state government controlled by, say, the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and denounce the same act if carried out by the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and vice versa.”20 Enahoro’s remark that “whoever and whatever ruined the First Republic did so with the active collaboration and connivance of the greater part of the Nigerian press”21 applied with equal force to the Second Republic.

On January 15, 1966, the military overthrew the government. Since then, it has made inconsistent moves towards journalistic freedom. On the one hand, it did away with all the limitations and bans that various local government councils had put in place prohibiting the distribution of periodicals backed by specific competing political parties and areas. On the other hand, the military suspended the Constitution and declared a state of emergency as their first official act after seizing power. Sections 24 and 25, which deal with fundamental human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience, were exempt from the new system. This may have merely been a token of devotion to fundamental rights because, as Elias has shown, the emergency decree made a decree superior to the

Nothing “shall render any provision of a decree void to any degree whatsoever,” as stated in the constitution. 22 Military governments in the future would follow this example.

Under military administration, there was the type of censorship that editors typically practice in a period of turbulence and serious national crisis, but the government took no official action to restrict press freedom. In reality, Ugboaja’s research revealed that government-owned newspapers’ stances on delicate subjects were as critical as, if not more critical than, those of several privately-owned newspapers. Sylvanus Ekwelie, another Nigerian academic, came to the conclusion that “Nigerian editors could still inform, lead, criticize, and even confront the government even under military rule”24. An impartial observer agreed, stating that the Nigerian press having, along with Kenya, the highest level of press freedom in Africa while being run by the military The study claims that Nigeria, where the national press is now essentially owned by the government, has spawned a breed of highly autonomous newspapermen, “even with a military junta that always has to look over its shoulder, to see if any young major is approaching from behind”25.

Press criticism of government corruption and wasteful spending, disapproval of the controversial 1974 census, and the Amakiri affair, in which a journalist was severely flogged and had his head forcibly shaved on the orders of a state military governor for publishing an accurate story that “embarrassed” the governor on his birthday, all posed challenges to the military.

Lateef Jakande, for many years chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, said the Emergency Decree of 1966 “was sufficient to turn the Nigerian press into a captive press.” That this had not happened under military rule was “due to the tradition of press freedom which dates from the colonial period, the courage and professional spirit of Nigerian editors and publishers, and the good sense of some of those in authority.”27

However, this pattern of surprising military scope for press freedom was to change significantly with the second period of military rule following the breakdown of the Second Republic, ominous signs of a clampdown on the press came shortly after the 31 December 1983 coup. The new head of state, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, still chafing under press allegations that N2.8 billion from the nation’s petroleum receipts went missing, during his tenure as Minister for Petroleum Resources during the Obasanjo regime hinted darkly that he would ‘tamper’ with the freedom of the press. He made good his threat two months later when he promulgated Decree 4 of 1984.

Decree 4 made it a crime to publish any report that was inaccurate in any material particular or embarrassed a public official. It allowed for no margin of error, and truth was no defense. Two journalists with the Guardian were convicted and jailed under the decree, which provided for trial by a special tribunal rather than the ordinary courts.28 No further prosecution was conducted under the decree, but it hung menacingly over the Nigerian press until it was abolished 20 months later when Buhari was deposed in a palace coup.

Decree 4 of 1984 was not the first of its kind, however. It had an antecedent in Decree 11 of 1976 which made it a crime to accuse a public officer of corrupt enrichment, if that accusation was false in any material particular. But Decree 4 had a much wider sweep, covering not just false accusations, but reports that embarrassed public officers, even if such reports were true. Besides, prosecutions under Decree 11 were to be conducted by the ordinary courts. The only prosecution begun under the decree was discontinued by the state when the defendant Dr. Obarogie Ohonbamu, publisher of the African Spark, apologized to the authorities.

The abrogation of Decree 4, the release of political detainees and the access to government officials that followed the overthrow of Buhari created a new climate of freedom not only in the press but throughout the country. The establishment of a Political Bureau to organize and conduct a debate on the restoration of democracy signaled what seemed to be a truly sincere commitment by the Babangida government to creating a new social order. Rarely had relations between the press and government been more cordial.

But this relationship was short-lived. In October 1986, Dele Giwa, a leading investigative reporter and editor-in-chief of the weekly newsmagazine Newswatch, was killed in his home by a parcel bomb alleged to have been sent by government agents. Not long thereafter, Newswatch itself was banned for six months, for publishing ahead of government a detailed summary of the Report of the Political Bureau.29 There followed a broad campaign of repression and intimidation against independent forces in civil society.

The abortive coup attempt of 22 April 1990 brought down the full weight of the government on the news media. Two newspapers, the Punch and Lagos News, and a newsmagazine, Newbreed were shut down for several weeks and a number of editors and commentators were detained for up to three months apparently on the orders of the federal government. Some were interrogated and released after a few days. Taking a cue from this campaign of harassment, the Lagos State governor ordered the closure of two newspapers because of their reporting on a clash between police and shopkeepers at the Alalia market in the metropolis. Once again, the press was under siege.30

During the remainder of General Babangida’s presidency, the power of the state was reportedly used to punish the press for excessive professional zeal and independence, and to intimidate it from taking its responsibilities seriously. In August 1991, Tony Ikeakanam, editor of the Benin-based Observer, was demoted and transferred for using “an inappropriate photograph” (read unflattering, unsmiling) of the increasingly imperial First Lady, Mrs. Marian Babangida. In October 1991, two Concord Press journalists were arrested in Zaria and detained without charge for two months for criticizing the deportation of William Keeling, a correspondent with the Financial Times of London who had reported on government misappropriation of windfall oil revenues.

On 30 December 1991, a Champion Newspapers correspondent in Katsina State, Felix Durumba, was arrested and subsequently detained for writing a front page crime story that embarrassed the police. Three months later, thousands of copies of the Champion were impounded by security agents for another story embarrassing to the police (alleging the death of a suspect in custody). That same month, March 1992, the editor and deputy editor of the Nigerian Tribune, Fola Olamiti and Victor Antwi were arrested over another story alleging police harassment and coercion of innocent citizens to pay bribes. In early January 1992, the Daily Times deputy editor, Ndaeyo Uko, and managing director, Yemi Ogunbiyi, were dismissed apparently for a front-page story in which Wole Soyinka criticized the government’s ‘open ballot’ system of voting.31

In its last years, the Babangida regime’s rhetoric toward the media grew more hostile and menacing as it was put on the defense more frequently. The press was repeatedly criticized and chastised by Vice President Aikhomu, Information Ministers Alex Akinleye and Sam Oyovbaire, and mysterious groups like the “Third Eye” emerged (apparently with government sponsorship and backing) to intensify the verbal battle and put psychological pressure on the independent press.

Changing Structure of the Press 

Early Nigerian journalism was primarily a private press. In order to dispel concerns that the region would be handed to Germany, the British colonial authorities in Northern Nigeria established a magazine that later changed its name to the Nigerian Citizen in 1947. 32 The Northern Region Literacy Agency (NORLA), afterwards known as the Gaskiya Company, oversaw the publication of the paper. The Eastern Nigeria Perspective was established by the Dr. Namdi Azikiwe-led Eastern Nigeria government nine years later. By a deal with the Thompson Newspaper Group in Britain, the Action Group (AG) government of Western Nigeria established the Amalgamated Press publishers of a network of publications that largely backed the party and the administration. 33

The Citizen in the North essentially became a government publication, and the ruling Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) established the Daily Mail in Kano as its official party publication. The Citizen changed its name to the New Nigerian in 1966. The Sketch was first published daily in 1964 by the government of Chief S.L. Akintola in response to the turmoil among the ruling Action Group in Western Nigeria. The Federal Government established the Morning Post and the Sunday Post in 1962 after finding itself unable to rely on the support of the media owned and controlled by the NCNC, the minor party in the centrally-ruling coalition. The civil war did not end well for the Outlook. Until they were no longer published after the civil war, these journals teetered from one catastrophe to another. The Federal Government seized control of the New Nigerian and 60% of the Daily Times’ ownership in 1975. 34

Virtually all the states created from the regions in 1966, 1976, and 1991 now have a daily or weekly newspaper owned and run by the governments of those states. Under elected governments, the nation’s experience has been that such newspapers virtually party newspapers funded by the government, since there were no distinction between the one and the other. Where the opposition party was strong and substantial as in Kwara State during the Second Republic, and the government-owned newspaper was overtly partisan – as the Nigerian Herald was – the official newspaper alienated large sections of the public and lost authority as well as revenue.

In sheer number, the Nigerian press is dominated by government-owned newspapers. Of more than 30 daily newspapers in the period under review, only six- the Tribune, Vanguard, The Punch, the Guardian, the National Concord, and the Champion – were privately owned. The weekly newsmagazines, among which Newswatch, the African Guardian, the African Concord, this Week, and the Nigerian Economist were the most prominent, were entirely privately owned.

But by and large, it was the privately-owned newspapers and magazines that exerted the most influence on public policy. They were often more critical. When government officials complained about the press, it was these newspapers they had in mind. Circulating nationwide and better produced than the others, they generally attracted more advertising and were or had the potential to become viable commercial propositions. On the other hand, only the Sketch, among the newspapers controlled by state governments, could be judged a commercial success. Others were sustained only by massive government subsidies.

Success is a relative term here. The combined daily circulation of all Nigerian newspapers, according to figures supplied by the Nigerian Newspaper Proprietors Association, was less than one million in the early 1990s, in a country with an estimated population of 100 million. Production costs are very high, because most of the materials had and still have to be purchased abroad in foreign currency, against a weak naira. Newsprint is available locally but is always in short supply. Distribution costs are just as high. Pooled distribution has been canvassed, but no serious initiative has been taken.

In several instances, it is the capacity of a publisher to sustain looses continually that sustains a publication. And anyone willing to put up with such losses probably nurses a different motive than a mere desire to disseminate news and information to the public. With so many titles on the newsstand, the Nigerian presses at all times offers a diversity of viewpoints. But the newspapers are serving all kinds of competing interests, and are subjected to all kinds of editorial control, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly, These influences that are brought to bear on the press may be ethnica1, political, religious, or economic. The New Nigerian, for example, has it as an article of its editorial policy to protect the interests of Northern Nigeria.35 Newspapers owned by Yoruba or Igbo or Hausa proprietors can hardly be expected to be neutral in reporting and commenting upon issues affecting their ethnic groups in significant ways. Powerful advertisers or suppliers of inputs vital to the newspaper industry are often in a position to influence the editorial direction of a newspaper. And when a newspaper is owned by a politician or political party, it will have to reflect the political preferences of its proprietor.

Consequently, while the press usually speaks with the same voice on foreign issues where the pressures of these influences are slight, it rarely does so when it comes to domestic issues. Thus, it does not usually have the impact on public opinion and public policy that it should have under the agenda-setting theory. The responsibility of the press in exposing Systemic abuses has been eroded by ethnic and religious considerations as well. A newspaper that sets out to expose a corrupt public official may find other newspapers vigorously defending the official for no reason other than that the embattled official is from the same ethnic group as the proprietor or editor of the sympathetic newspaper. Of course, it could well be that the crusading newspaper picked on that official in the first instance because the official happens not to be from the same ethnic group as the editor or the proprietor. Thus, it is the courts and special investigation tribunals rather than the press that have uncovered systemic abuses in Nigeria.

For instance, the reporting on Nigeria’s alleged membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was governed by religious rather than public policy considerations. Newspapers in the Muslim north or sponsored by Muslim proprietors upheld the alleged membership, justifying it on the grounds that Nigeria had long established diplomatic relations with the Holy See and claiming that Nigeria stood to reap huge economic benefits from membership forgetting that the country is secular. Newspapers in the south, or those sponsored by Christian proprietors, insisted that membership in the OIC was a violation of the nation’s secular status. Those favouring membership rejoined that a secular state did not have to be indifferent to religion.

Party, ethnic, and religious considerations continued to have a significant impact on newspaper editorial lines and news coverage even though there were only two political parties in existence in the final years of the Babangida transition program, undermining not only the press’s ability to influence public opinion and the formulation of public policy, particularly at home, but also its ability to uphold its constitutional mandate.

It should be emphasized that there were three distinct stages to Babangida’s transition, each of which colored media behavior. The first saw the establishment of transitional institutions by the government up until the beginning of 1989, with largely supportive press behavior. The second phase, which lasted from 1989 to 1993, was characterized by growing media skepticism regarding Babangida’s dedication to the transformation. It saw the press become divided into pro- and anti-Babangida camps. The third, which began on June 12, 1993, was published at the same time that the changeover came apart and media coverage of its effects.

The shift started out innocently enough and held up the promise of exciting times for the press, which is fundamentally political. Editors eagerly anticipated the return of politics. The Political Bureau’s activities to plan and host a political discussion drew a lot of news attention. Memoranda to the Bureau were routinely published. Editorial remarks made reference to the Bureau’s Report and the government’s White Paper on it. several press reports was also given to the Constitution Review Committee’s report, the Constituent Assembly’s work on it, and the 1989 Constitution as a result. The National Electoral Commission received media attention as well.

The newspapers rearranged their newsrooms, established up political desks, and reclassified some of their staff members as political journalists as soon as the Constituent Assembly started meeting. Some publications gave the head of their political desk the title of political editor, presumably as a reflection of the value they placed on the resumption of political engagement. The actions of the 13 political associations that aspired to be recognized as political parties, their eventual dissolution, the formation of the SDP and the NRC as two new political parties, the ongoing delays and manipulations of  the transition process, and of course the election campaigns, were all closely followed and extensively commented upon in the press.

As in the previous two periods of party politics, newspapers revealed their partisan leanings. Some of these influences and leanings were manifest in the period between the lifting of the ban on political activity and the selection of the two political associations seeking official recognition. The People’s Solidarity Party, embracing elements of the Second Republic’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), and the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) were given bountiful editorial coverage and endorsement by the Nigerian Tribune, owned by the family of the late UPN leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The Liberal Convention, of which the publisher of the Champion and brothers of the publisher of the Guardian were prominent members, received ample attention in those newspapers. And The Reporter kept alive the name and programme of the Peoples front of Nigeria, of which its publisher (Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua) was a founder and leading light. And on the eve of the government’s announcement of the two political parties that were expected to emerge from the Electoral Commission’s shortlist of six, these newspapers indicated in one way or another their preferences, based mainly on the interests of their proprietors.

As indicated earlier, much of the period between 1989 and 1993 was taken up by debates and kite-flying on the changes and postponements in the transition programme. One interesting point to note here is the adroit use by the Babangida regime of acolytes in the press to prepare the ground for such changes and to justify them after they were announced. It was not only such pro- Babangida groups and individuals as the Third Eye, the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) and Chief Arthur Nzeribe who sought to buy media space in order to push this platform. Senior and respected media personalities and organizations also put themselves into the service of the unfolding agenda.

At the Daily Times, for instance, academic-turned editorial writer and columnist, Chidi Amuta, in 1989, warned what “given the nature and extent of the economic and political reforms which lBB have float in motion, it would be unpatriotic of him and the military to quit power at the centre as early as 1992.”36 Another public affairs commentator equally noted in the press in 1991 of Nigerians that they cannot bring themselves to the position where they will tell the President direct: “’please, stay’ but the circumstances will be such that the question of going in 1992 will not arise. First, the politicians have started showing their normal colour even at the level of local government elections. Secondly, the exigencies of continental politics will be such that if IBB cannot hand over in 1992. It will not be his fault. By June next year, he will be re-elected as chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and it will become unpatriotic for any Nigerian to ask him to sacrifice national demands for continental service.

With logic such as this, pro-Babangida forces in and outside the press sought to hijack public discourse to create an image of support for an extended stay in office for Babangida. However, thanks in part to the plural structure of the press and society outlined earlier, this proved a difficult task indeed. The private press, especially in the southern part of the country, continued to insist on Babangida fulfilling his pledge to hand over power to a democratically elected government even on such occasions when Babangida announced changes to terminal dates for such handing over.

For instance, one of these publications, The Guardian, opposed the Babangida regime’s plan to push back the transition of power from 1990 to 1992 in a series of editorials that ran over five days, from July 6 to 10, 1987; The Guardian once more discussed promises broken, a turn away from openness, and the failure to disseminate the benefits of structural adjustment in an editorial on September 1, 1989, to commemorate four years of the Babangida rule. The newspaper’s warning that the government doesn’t care or listen left a lasting impression. 38

In order to prepare for the annulment of the presidential election in June 1993 and beyond, the government repressed oppositional and pro-democratic media for a period of time. Yet, such government repression resulted in