MEDIA NARRATIVES ON POWER RELATIONS IN NIGERIA (A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THREE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS)

ABSTRACT

This research examined how Nigerian newspaper columnists narrate the power relations within the country and how they reiterate and rearticulate historical and political events in their analysis of the balance of power with regard to the upcoming presidential election in March 2015.

By analyzing the writings of three columnists from three different newspapers, the study examined how ownership and the geographic environment in which a newspaper is published influence the narratives employed by columnists in their bid to set agenda and mold public opinion.

While doing so, triangulation of Teun Van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive approach to

Critical Discourse Analysis and Norman Fairclough‟s textual, contextual and social analyses in the treatment of the subject were used. Hence, the texts of the columns were analyzed within the socio-political contexts to understand their implications for the social behavior of the readers as potential voters. Three newspapers were used to cater for the north/south political dichotomy and to give a representation to each region. The study, however, views the dichotomy differently, projecting it as a division between those who support the status quo and those who oppose it. The three newspapers used in the study were Vanguard (representing the pro status quo), Daily Trust (representing the anti-status quo), and Nigerian Tribune (providing a middle ground between the two camp).

Conclusions of the study suggest that the political and economic elites use their ownership and control of the newspapers to influence the narratives of their columnists. The columnists in turn use volatile concepts like religion, and ethnicity in their narratives to divide the public and move them towards taking political decisions that favor the political elites.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Political Communication, Boko Haram, Ethno-religious crisis, Democracy, 2015 presidential election in Nigeria.

 

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides a background to this study by tracing the events that led to the emergence of Nigeria as a nation state. It also gives a summative description of the pattern of relationships and interaction among the ethnic and religious groups that make up Nigeria. It describes the two levels of socio-political contention between the people. The first level of contention is between the northern and southern regions of the country while the second level of contention is among various groups within each region. The chapter also discusses the role politicization of the ethno-religious and cultural differences for the benefit of the elite. It is argued that the protection of elite interest is done through the control of media content for the mobilization of the masses for the achievement of the political goals of the elites. The chapter also states the problem of the study as well as the purpose. It also discusses the relevance of the study, the methodologies used and the inherent limitations of the study.

1.1 Background to the Study

Nigeria has lasted for one hundred years since her creation by the British colonial administration in 1914. However, there have been deep-seethed suspicion among the many ethnic and religious groups brought together to form the political entity. The suspicion has led to multiple divisions among the constituent groups. While there is mutual distrust and obvious contention between the “North” and the “South” on one hand, there are divisions and suspicions among the various groups that make up the

“North” and “South”. For instance, although the people inhabiting the “Middle-Belt” state of Plateau are from Northern Nigeria, they see themselves as distinct from the Hausas because they have different languages, histories and cultural values/practices which are strange to the other tribes. Also the people of this state (Plateau) who are predominantly Christians perennially find themselves at odds with the predominantly

Muslim Hausa/Fulani people of the “North”. On the micro level, the Berom, Ngas, and Langtang tribes of Plateau State also find themselves in keen contention for the positions of power within the state (Ibekwe, 2012).  This often leads to political disagreements and violence for which each group accuses the other of being the mastermind.

In the southern part of Nigeria the Major tribes (Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Bini, etc.) are in perpetual contention for the political positions allocated to the region. Interestingly, the minority tribes also cry about systematic alienation by the bigger tribes. Even where the inhabitants are homogenous in language and religion (like the Igbos), political gladiators create divisions along clan and cast lines in order to achieve political aims. The ruling class has somehow succeeded in keeping these divisions in place to a level of near-institutionalization. As such, alliances among the lower class, middle class and elites in form of friendship and marital ties are very low, thus preventing members of one group (or social class) from getting adequate knowledge about other groups (or social classes). The implication of this scenario is that each group sees the other group as representing what it does not represent. For instance, a Yoruba man would take pride in the Yoruba renowned value of respect for those who are older while erroneously believing that Ibos and Hausas do not respect their elders. This reductionist approach further prevents them from learning about other cultures and ethnic groups. Consequently, they fail to understand their role in the power dynamics of the country and they are unable to collectively upstage the balance of power or hold the elites accountable for their decisions and actions.

From the background provided above, it is arguable that the geographical space called Nigeria has been relatively unstable since Great Britain granted independence to the country. However, it must be said that “the forces responsible for the prevailing fissiparous tendencies in Nigeria, and indeed in most African states, were activated long before independence” (Alapiki , 2005, p. 50).

The struggle among the ethnic groups could be attributed to nationalist feelings. Nationalism however is a divisive phenomenon because it creates new frontiers for conflicts among the constituents of a nation-state. As Brown (2000) puts it, new forms of nationalism have emerged to challenge the “nationalist legitimacy of many existing state(s) … [through] nationalist claims of ethnic and regional minorities, thus generating new contentions” (Brown, 2000, p. 1).

The role of the media in the creation and maintenance of the divisions and suspicions among the ethnic and religious groups in Nigeria cannot be overstated. The mass media have been strong instruments for the mobilization of the masses for the actualization of elite desires since its inception. The effects of the mass media in the society could be negative or positive when put to use for political purposes. While the positive effects are commonly felt in democratic settings, the negative effects are commonly felt in autocratic setting; but the good and bad effects of the media are not mutually exclusive to democracy and autocracy. However, the media is often negatively used in the political process in most African countries.  For instance, the ramifications of the Rwandan civil conflict/genocide led to accusations of incitement of hatred by the Rwandan media. The media encouraged the genocide by “using an ethnic framework to report what was essentially a political struggle.” (Kellow & Steeves, 1998, p. 107). They reportedly spread rumor and created panic among the people by “using a kill- or-be-killed frame, and of relaying directives about the necessity of killing the Tutsi people as well as instructions on how to do it.” (Kellow & Steeves, 1998, p. 107). This ultimately led to the killing of about one million Rwandans by the end of the conflict, most of whom were ethnic Tutsis. Rwanda is yet to recover from the carnage twenty years after. Such is the negative impact which a dysfunctional use of the mass media can have on a society.

The mass media is the link between the ruling class and the public. It is “one of the most important instruments through which those in power seek to influence the

political thinking of their subjects” (Ojo, 2003, p. 829). With its intrinsic ability to simultaneously reach a mass and highly dispersed audience, the media has developed into a setter of agenda and molder of public opinion. While radio and television are unarguably very effective in reaching the masses in developing countries and developed countries, the importance of the elites in shaping the reactions of the masses to the messages they receive from the mass media cannot be overestimated. Many residents of developing countries supplement media messages with interpersonal communication. They ask more enlightened people to interpret media messages and government policies for them. Therefore, their reaction to a news item or government policy is influenced by the original message as well as the interpretation given by the better-informed opinion leaders. Interestingly the elites rely on informed analysis of events in newspapers as opposed to the masses that massively rely on radio and television for information. In my opinion politics is

“serious” or “hard” business, and newspapers are “serious” or “hard” media, radio and television on the other hand, provide greater entertainment value and they are used by the elites to keep the masses occupied with entertainment and disinterested in politics. This position is without prejudice to the facts that there are many newspapers that are “soft-sells” published primarily for their entertainment values; and there are also a high number of serious political programmes on radio and

television.

While it is easy for people to read news stories as presented in newspapers, the media literacy for the correlation of what is read in news stories is neither universal nor common. Many media users take their media literacy skills for granted and fail to develop them. Stanley Baran noted that, media literacy skills “like all skills, it can be improved. And if we consider how important the mass media are in creating and maintain the culture that that helps define us and our lives, it is a skill that must be improved” (Baran, 2005, p. 34). Consequently, many media users require other people to help them make clearer meanings out of media messages. This underscores the importance of the columnist in the information chain. Subsequently, newspaper columnists are arguably quite influential in the formation and shaping of public opinion. They are specialists who usually write on their areas of expertise. They monitor events in the society -both reported and unreported- and present their interpretation of the issues in their columns. The columns are informed summaries and interpretations of events as seen by the columnists. The elite class -especially those involved in decision making and implementing policies- influence the writings of columnists on one hand, and they rely on the pool of processed information provided by columnists in taking policy decisions on the other hand. There are many columnists in Nigeria whose columns are dedicated to politics. These columnists shape their readers‟ perception and understanding of news items and political events.

The opinions of these columnists are often in tandem with the ideological and political leaning of the editors and publishers of the newspapers which they use as platforms to reach the public.

There are many newspapers in Nigeria. Each of these newspapers is a platform for the promotion of the ideas and values of its publisher as well as the protection of his/her economic, social, and/or political interests. Many of them often hit the newsstands abruptly only to disappear from the newsstands with equal or greater abruption, thus making it almost impossible to capture the number of newspapers in Nigeria.  However, a handful of national newspapers have weathered the storm of high newspaper turnover in Nigeria to become widely accepted and respected. These newspapers include, The Punch, Tribune, Daily Trust, Vanguard, Thisday, Daily Sun, Leadership, Guardian and The Nation. Each of these newspapers covertly or overtly promotes the political and economic interests of its publisher or the ethnic, regional and/religious group of its publisher. While newspaper publishers struggle to influence the minds of Nigerian readers, the government is focused on influencing Nigerians through the broadcast media. In fact, the government is the biggest player in Nigerian broadcast industry (Musa & Mohammed, 2004, p. 244).

1.2 The Problem of Study

As the 2015 general elections approach in Nigeria, the polity is visibly charged up with divisive narratives along ethnic, regional and religious lines by columnists. While it may be argued that columnists only provide a reflection of the society at large in their columns, their influential opinions further provide fuel to the perennial conflagrations permeating the Nigerian polity. The apparent diversity in the composition of the Nigerian society which ought to be a unique selling point is proving to be a burden because each tribal and religious group wants to enjoy the commonwealth of the country while preventing other component groups from doing the same. There are speculations and well-founded fears that this could lead to another civil war in Nigeria (Udo, 2013). The upcoming presidential election comes with serious implications signs for the future of the nation as evident in the terrorist attacks in some sections of the country, inflammatory rhetoric by the terrorist group which has threatened to disrupt the elections, and the consequent blame game between the government and opposition; each side is accusing the other of being the mastermind of the terrorist activities. Whenever a problem arises in the country, citizens are often quick to blame one another rather than face the problem. For instance, Christians blame Muslims for the Boko Haram insurgency. They say that Muslims are trying to Islamize Nigeria through Boko Haram. Muslims on the other hand claim that Boko Haram has killed more Muslims than Christians, therefore, they say that Boko Haram is a tool of political terrorism used by the Christians to reduce the Muslim population so that the president (who is a Christian) can be reelected in 2015. When a government official is accused of embezzlement, most of those who share the same ethnicity or religion with the accused government official would defend the corrupt acts while most of those from other ethnic or religious groups would castigate the government official without seeking full information on the issue. These scenarios ultimately lead to conflicts which often turn violent. The conflicts are often maximized for political gains by political groups through the mass media, and columnists often serve as media agents propagating the views of each ethnic and religious group.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

As stated earlier, Nigeria is a country enriched with diversity. The diverse groups are in perpetual contention for the benefits of the union. The scale and frequency of ethno-religious conflict in Nigeria makes one to “wonder if the Nigerian experiment is on the brink” (Nwuke, 2001, p. 188). The media, especially newspapers are generally used as tools in the mobilization of group members and those without group affiliations towards the achievement of specific group objectives. For instance, in the struggle for presidential power, the elites of the major tribes (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) strongly use the media to seek the emergence of somebody from their own tribes as president. In the process, they use ethnic framing to make the publics of each major tribal group support the candidates from their tribal groups. Similarly, they attempt to win the support of smaller ethnic groups (e.g. Idoma, Bini, Berom, etc.) offering them attractive political deals in the process. The mass mobilization of the masses for the actualization of group objective creates further suspicions among the people and widens the gap of love, tolerance, and cooperation among them. However, the focus of this study is narrowed to the influence of newspaper columnists in the divisions created in the process of achieving group objectives which is the acquisition of political power.  This work seeks to examine the extent to which newspaper columnists contribute to the widening of the chasm which already exists among the various ethno-regional and religious groups in Nigeria. This is done through analyses of the discourses in selected columns from three newspapers with one representing the government, one representing the “North” and another representing the “South”. Their narratives on ethnic and religious matters, the presidential election in 2015, corruption in government, and the Boko Haram insurgency are the basis for selection. I also attempt to examine how the ethnic, religious, regional and social background of each columnist affects how he/she presents his/her discourses on these issues.

1.4 Relevance of the Study

The unity of Nigeria is widely regarded as non-negotiable (Jimoh, 2015; Obineche et.al. 2015; and Erunke, 2014). Yet it is amply evident that all is not well with the nation, judging by the periodic flare-ups leading to the death of many across the country. There has been strong ethnic nationalism among the constituent groups of

Nigeria. Ethnic nationalism in this regard refers to “a sense of community which focuses on belief in myths of common ancestry; and on the perception that these myths are validated by contemporary similarities of … physiognomy, language or religion.” (Brown, 2000, p. 51). The contentions occasioned by the nationalist feelings of the constituent groups have led to calls for the balkanization of Nigeria into five countries. The position is very strong among the young adults especially those born after the Nigerian Civil war which ended in 1970.

Therefore, the relevance of this work lies in its representation of the feelings, aspirations, and desires of Nigerians which may not be readily available in the traditional media and public forums. There have been calls for the disintegration of the country along ethnic or religious lines (Ajayi, 2010) and these calls have been more rampant in Nigerian print and broadcast media as well as the social media. This work could go down as one of the earliest academic studies to openly discuss, sum, and analyze the discourses on Nigerian unity.

1.5 Method of the Study

This study employs a qualitative methodology. It attempts to achieve its objective through a Discourse Analysis of the narratives used by the selected columnists in the selected Nigerian newspapers. The newspapers selected for the study are Daily Trust, Nigerian Tribune, and Vanguard newspapers. All three newspapers are national newspapers with relatively high circulation across Nigeria and they have online editions as well. The geographical location of the newspapers and their political leanings as well as the ethnicity and religion of the publishers were considered in their selection.  Daily Trust is published in Kaduna (a northern city) by a northern Muslim, while Nigerian Tribune is published by a prominent Christian family in the south-western city of Ibadan. Vanguard is published in Lagos (southern Nigeria) by another southern Christian from the President Jonathan‟s Niger-Delta region. Online editions of the newspapers were used for this study because it was convenient for the researcher to access online editions without paying a visit to Nigeria unlike the print copies of the newspapers.

Based on the framework of Agenda Setting theory which suggests that the mass media provide the public with events and topics to think about, this study employs the Critical Discourse Analysis method to examine how columnists in the three selected newspapers contribute to the ethnic and religious divisions in Nigeria through their writings on the upcoming presidential election and the Boko Haram insurgency. The study examined how the ethnicity and religion of each of the selected columnists (as well as the biases of the publisher and editors) influence what is written about the presidential election and the Boko Haram insurgency. I feel that the narratives employed by these columnists could determine the reaction of the masses to national events. Critical Discourse Analysis was selected as a method for the study because of the nature of the topic and the issues treated in the research. The research deals with emotions and perceptions which cannot be easily quantified through the use of a quantitative method like survey.

1.6 Limitations of the Study

This work is limited to the treatment of power-relations among the elites of the Nigerian ethnic groups, national security and Nigerian unity in three Nigerian national newspapers which are Daily Trust, Vanguard and “Nigerian Tribune”. The study is limited to the sample of these three newspapers because the methodology (Critical Discourse Analyses) used in the study is best suited for a limited number of sample. However, it is important to note that focusing on these three newspapers automatically excludes other national (and local) newspapers which could have otherwise helped in giving other perspectives and ultimately better understanding of the main issue and the sub-issues discussed in the work. Also the focus on the events of the “Fourth Republic” which started in 1999 and the Goodluck Jonathan presidency which commenced in 2010, could lead the reader to develop a simplistic summary of the issues discussed in the work.

The selection of columns written between June 2013 and November 2014 is another limitation to this study because the reader is deprived the opportunity to see all the columns written about presidential power shift and the Boko Haram insurgency since the onset of Goodluck Jonathan presidency in 2010.

Lack of reliable data is a problem in Nigeria. It is often said that Nigerians fail to learn from history because they do not keep record. This problem extends to newspaper circulation in Nigeria because there is no data on the circulation figures of the newspapers used for this study.

Getting background information on the columnists used for this study also proved difficult as their biographies are not in the public domain. Attempts to reach them were partially successful as only one of them responded to my messages.

 

MEDIA NARRATIVES ON POWER RELATIONS IN NIGERIA (A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THREE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS)

Sharing is caring!