"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." ?????
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." ?????
If I were to ask you who utter these two statements, you would probably think two different persons. One a friend of press freedom and the other an opponent of free press. Well, you are wrong. These 2 statements were uttered at different times by the same person. The first quote is often trot out by journalist and repeated ad nauseam when some government officials push back against the media. Thomas Jefferson wrote the first statement in a letter to his friend, Edward Carrington in 1787. He made 2 assumptions that is currently subjected to epistemological inquiry: First, will there be newspapers to read for the next generation? Secondly, who is reading newspaper and are they capable of reading them? Let's just say the jury is still out on these 2 posers.
Now to the second quote, in 1807, the same Thomas Jefferson, wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper by the name, John Norvell to complain about misinformation in newspapers. He further wrote, "I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."
What brings me to this quotes is none other than the sad and perilous state of the free press in Nigeria. A cursory glance of the major newspapers headline today awash with reports of Big Brothers (BBNaija), English Premiership League, Gulder Ultimate Search etc. You will get to the inner/lower pages of their webpages/newspapers before you find information on the budgetary process, the Pandora expose' and the ongoing war against bandits/Boko Haram. Even when it focuses on hard hitting news, it is no longer uncommon to find 2 newspapers located in the same City contradicts each other on the same facts/reports.
These concerns led me to dig through the history of Nigeria newspapers and free press and what I found astounds me. Nigerian journalism indeed owes more to its colonial origins than it sometimes cares to admit, apologies to Ayo Olukotun. The British heritage as he stated is a paradoxical one, as the vibrancy of the Anglophone West African Press at the beginning easily beats out the tepid and state oriented Francophone African Press. While it is true that Britain allowed in West African the liberties of the British subject including freedom of expression and freedom to travel and study abroad, this is only half the story. For instance, it is well known that the British did place in the way of "the embryonic Nigerian colonial press", several obstacles ranging from censorship laws, to partial bans and outright proscription, especially when press militancy coincided as it often did, with high tides of political agitation. Is that any different from GEJ or Buhari"s approach to press freedom? I doubt not.
As Olukotun wrote, "We can appreciate this paradoxical legacy by regarding it as an inefficient dictatorship, which had enough latitude for an oppositional press to grow, but yet acted to restrict the expression of liberty when it got assertive enough to challenge imperial hegemony".
The early newspapers such as "Iwe Irohin" (1859) bore the imprint of Christian missionary influence, which in its bid to evangelize Nigerians, educated them and stimulated publishing. But those who argue that the Nigerian press was born in persecution are right, for as early as 1862, Governor H. S. Freeman, had written to the Colonial Office in London asking to be permitted to impose a newspaper tax, which would prevent newspapers from becoming commercial successes. The governor's request was rejected by London, but it served warning that an indigenous press would not be allowed to mushroom without a fight.
Another early attempt to hinder the burgeoning local press occurred when Governor John Glover, having failed to stifle the London-printed African Times, through outright confiscation, in view of public outcry, arranged for its slow and late delivery by the post office whenever it carried a politically sensitive matter. This brings back to memory the deliberate efforts of General Ibrahim Babangida to deny news paper publishers access to import license they needed for importation of newsprint.
In spite of these early setbacks, the press in Nigeria did grow in leaps, bounds, number and technical proficiency, so much so that over 50 newspapers sprung up between 1880 and the early 1940s featuring such titles as Lagos Times (1880), Eagle and Lagos Critic (1883); Lagos Weekly Record (1891), Chronicle (1908), Nigerian Daily Times (1926) and West African Pilot (1937).
Two developments worth noting in the early colonial press were the breadth and vitality of the Lagos Weekly Record founded by John Payne Jackson regarded as the authentic precursor of the yet-to-come nationalist press, as well as the spate of colonial laws put in place to check what was increasingly perceived as "the regime of hostile propaganda against the colonial administration".
Some of the remarkable anti-press legislations of this early period include the 1903 Newspaper Ordinance which imposed a heavy tax on newspaper publishing for instance a mandatory deposit of 250 pounds, the Criminal Code Ordinance of 1961 as well as the Sedition Offences Ordinances of 1909 and 1942 which empowered the judiciary among other things, to send to jail journalists found guilty of provoking disaffection or hatred as defined by the authorities.
The catch, for example about the Seditious Offences Ordinance of 1909 was in its Section 3 which states that:
“Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or excites or tries to excite disaffection, disloyalty or feelings of enmity towards His Majesty or the government established by law in southern Nigerian, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to 2 years, or with a fine or with imprisonment and fine.”
Such clumsy and oppressive laws did not prevent a vigorous press from arising and asserting itself with increasing verve especially from the end of the Second World War. The Azikwe group of newspapers as the saying went “elec-zikified” Nigerian journalism. These newspapers included, among others Eastern Nigerian spokesman, Daily Comet; Eastern Sentinel; Southern Nigerian Defender and Nigerian Monitor.
These newspapers were spread across the nation, thus giving shape to a sense of nationalism in spatial terms. They also popularized banner headlines, used photographs and carried a mass appeal by using simple English. Zik practiced political journalism at its most vitriolic, and a distinguishing feature of the latter colonial press is the rise of the party press in which the leading, regionally based parties owned and controlled newspapers for politically expedient reasons.
It should be noted that not all newspapers in the colonial period were anti-colonial. Some, like Kitoyi Ajasa’s Nigeria Pioneer as well as, to a lesser extent The Daily Times were pro-colonial, while some publications spent more time attacking other nationalists than agitating against colonialism. Overall, however, the agitational strain prevailed and names like Ernest Ikoli, Herbert Macaulay, MCK. Ajuluchukwu, Anthony Enahoro, Babatunde Jose, among others made their reputation and careers from the anti colonial journalism of those times.
The Media and the Build up tot he War 1960-1965
Between 1960 and the collapse of the First Republic, the major newspapers included The Daily Times, The Express and The Post. These three strove to be above the partisan fray that engulfed the other papers, most of which were established as political party mouthpieces.
The North was served mainly by the Nigerian Citizen with a circulation of close to 10,000 and Gaskiya a Hausa language publication. There was also the Kano-based Daily Mail which appeared in both English and Hausa with an estimated circulation of 10,000 and notable for flying pro-Sardauna kites.
The East was well served by the Outlook described by Holman as the spearhead of "NCNC propaganda". There was also the Port Harcourt based Eastern Nigerian Guardian and the Onitsha based Nigerian Spokesman. Chief Festus Okotieboh also floated The Midwest Champion to advance the struggle for the creation of the Midwest Region. In the West, there was The Sketch; The Nigerian Tribune established by the Action Group as well as the pro-NNDP's Imole Owuro. Then, we had The West African Pilot which during the crisis of 1963-1965 adopted a pronounced Pro-UPGA position.
The Legal Environment
The colonial regime was updated and those laws which restricted press freedom during the colonial phase remained on the statute books. Nonetheless, Section 24 of the 1960 constitution states that:
Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.
The impact of this provision is however weakened in subsection 2:
nothing in this section shall invalidate any law that is reasonable, justifiable in a democratic society in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health."
Although the boundaries of press freedom were put to test by a series of legal suits against newspapers, their impact was weakened because [quote]the tendency was for such cases to follow the contours of party schisms with pro-NCNC papers being taken to court by persons identified with other parties while persons identified with the NCNC or NPC took pro-AG papers to court."- Agbaje[/quote]
Indeed as is widely acknowledged, a feature of that period was the extreme degree of partisanship which the press displayed especially during the AG crisis of 1962-3; the Census Controversy of 1963-4 and the 1964, 1965 election crisis.
As Olatunji Dare laments,
Even when the intentions of the press were relatively neutral, several obstacles stood in the way of the press performing neutrally... The politicians abused neutrality by making reckless and unproven allegations against their opponents which the neutral press nevertheless felt obliged to print. The neutral press was vulnerable to vengeful reprisal especially in areas where partisanship was the order of the day
In fact, these vengeful refusals became so bad that in 1965, during the election controversy, the Onitsha urban County Council and the Enugu City Council banned the circulation of The Times, The Post and The Sketch. Imaginably, the Ibadan City Council revenged by banning The Pilot, The Tribune and The Daily Times. These setbacks notwithstanding, the press operated with a crusading spirit by struggling against censorship laws such as the Official Secrets Act (1962) and The Newspaper (Amendment) Act of 1964, both of which sought to constrain the press.
Larry Diamond is correct therefore in insisting that the press of the first Republic was the
most potent institution supporting democratic freedom. There is a tradition of hard-hitting, fearless and independent journalism which was carried over from the colonial days when the press was the spearhead of nationalism. Though most papers are intensely partisan, they have several times agreed with each other and opposed the authorities who sought to restrict freedom of the press or individuals.
As Olukotun and Sonaike testify in 1996 in their book on Babatunde Jose, a robust media tradition in which columnists had a field day satirising or frankly deploring the excesses of the political class was preponderant.
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