Blogging Wale Adebanwi paper titled "The War before the
War: The Press and the Nigerian Crisis
The crucial role of the press in construction, amplification
and resolution of societal crisis has been noted by scholars writing from
different perspectives and honouring differing theoretical traditions. As the
Nigerian military chiefs meeting in Aburi, Ghana in 1967 pointed out, the
Nigerian press is at the vortex of politics and it is one of the few institutions
that often set the tone and tenor of political debates and what is regarded as
political reality.
Yet, the press organizations in Nigeria are representatives
of dominant ethno-regional and/or ethno-religious interests contending for
ascendancy in the nation's politics. The wars that these newspapers fight are
almost always, fought on behalf of dominant ethno-regional or ethno-religious
blocs, which was why the Morning Post the defunct federal military
government owned newspaper pandering to the interests of the northern-military
officers-led government, and the New Nigerian representing the North
constituted the greatest impediments to national cohesion for Lt. Col. Odemgwu
Ojukwu, the then military governor of the East; for the then head of state, Lt.
Col. Yakubu Gowon, the Eastern Nigerian Outlook, owned by the aggrieved
Eastern Region was the most guilty of this offence. For Lt. Col. Hassan
Katsina, the military governor of the North, teh Outlook was the unbearable
proverbial pain in the neck.
The press in Nigeria has always fought war, many of them
ennobling, some purely enabling. From its inception in 1859 when Iwe Irohin was founded by Rev. Henry Townsend “to wage war against ignorance, illiteracy
and paganism.” The press has often functioned as the “war machine” of disparate
interests. Given this backdrop, it has also often been polarized along
different lines, the most paramount of which is the
establishment/anti-establishment polarity. From the period of Akitoye Ajasa’s Nigerian Pioneer which a rival paper described as “a lick spittle” ,
because of its support for the colonial government, these polar-relations have
defined the character of the press in Nigerian. However the polar-relations
have been defined by and in turn have defined the power relations in the
country.
Wale Adebanwi in this paper analyses media discourses in the
period preceding the actual outbreak of hostilities –civil war-with a view of
highlighting the signifiers of crucial issues that were at stake in the crisis.
These signifiers codify the core issues, grievances and viewpoints that were
absorbed, elaborated and amplified by the press. Before the first shot was
fired, the press had fired several shots in different directions, which
provided the impetus, in part, and reflected the other bases, for the civil
war.
How did the press reflect the contending issues? What role
did the press play? Did the media discourses set the tone and tenor of the
crisis and the war that was to follow? What implications do the discourses of
this era have for post-war political relations? Unless we look at the events
preceding the war, particularly in terms of how they were represented in the
media, we cannot fully understand the representations of the war in the post
war period, marked as they are by the binary discourses of victory and loss-and
the unceasing low-intensity hostilities that continue till the present day.
Wale Adebanwi uses four newspapers’ editorials, data and
opinion pages published daily during the period of the Nigerian civil war and
concluded that the press is complicit in the passion that characterized the
pursuit of the manifold issues that faced the young nation of Nigeria post-independence
as they inflated the claims and invested the “canon” of each of the opposing
parties “too much sanctity, freedom, unity and morality. The discourses of each
of the contending parties advanced by Morning Post (federal government), West
African Pilot (East), New Nigerian (North) and Nigerian Tribune (West) editorials
reflected more openly and without apologies, the interests they served and
protected. He used qualitative methods to analyze no less than 1000 daily
editions of the four newspapers with an average of 250 per newspaper. His data
includes, 1,200 editorials, 30 front page stories and 5 opinion articles
relevant to the crisis.
Wale segmented the discourses into 5 signifiers: Silent
Signifiers, Signifiers of Unity, Signifier of fragmentation, Signifiers of Doom
and Signifiers of Symbolic Insults.
Silent Signifiers
Silent signifiers are threads that link up other past issues
to the matter at hand even without clearly drawing the link, but they are easily
linked by the reader who is familiar with the past events.
For example, the idea of unitarism had been pushed
vigorously by the West African Pilot (WAP) as articulated by its owner Nnamdi
Azikiwe, before independence, and then abandoned it, as Zik joined Obafemi
Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello in the latter
argument’s argument for a federal arrangement. However when Major-General
Johnson T. Aguiyi-Ironsi, and Igbo came to power and revived the idea of
unitary government, WAP picked up the battle again. Igbo elites post
independence supported a centralized government to protect their predominance
in commerce in any part of the country and give them the opportunities they
crave wherever they are. Here is how WAP captures the introduction of a
“unitary budget” for 1966-1967 fiscal year:
“Nigeria’s 1966-1967 Unitary Budget will go down in history
as the only realistic fiscal approach to the national problems of this country
since independence.”
WAP was silent on the fact that this fits in quite well with
the Igbo agenda in national politics “since in fact before independence”. The
paper asked the Ironsi government to go further by abolishing the word
“federal” attached to Nigeria. If it does, the paper intones:
“the name of the military government of Nigeria will be written
in gold as the only Go-Getter Government that brought unity to this country.”
Given the fact that the only other government that Nigeria
had had was the northern-elite led Tafawa Balewa government led government, WAP
needed not to state that that was not a “go-getter government” that failed to
bring “unity”.
Given the tension building up in the country at the time,
particularly in the north, which was then the most dissatisfied section of the
country, WAP pointedly ignored this, as if everything was normal, as it
reported when Ironsi began a country-wide tour-during which he was killed and
his regime overthrown- “that we are marching to progress.
This silence was matched by the peculiar silence of the New
Nigerian, which also seemed to ignore the tension-or rather, to speculate, did
not want to let out the coup-cat from the crisis-bag! In all of July when the
tension actually boiled over, NN concentrated on other issues.
Signifiers of Unity
All the newspapers were very elaborate about “Unity”, even though
the discourses of “unity” were constructed in the service of the positions that
they served. We see this in the way WAP and MP handled this issue of agitation
for a Calabar-Ogoja Rivers State. WAP had a lead story announce to minorities
in the Igbo East that they have hope of realizing their dreams. This was while
Ironsi was still in power. But by the time Gowon came to power and the Igbo
began their quest for a separate state, MP began a different discourse of
unity:
“All we mean is that personal (read, Lt. Col. Ojukwu)
clannish or sectional (read Igbo) interests should be considered subordinate to
the overall interest of the nation.”
This preoccupation with fighting for unity did not prevent
the MP for instance from somersaulting on its position. On the best political
arrangement that will ensure unity in Nigeria, MP under Ironsi insisted that
“The country has suffered too much from tribalism. The
people must unite. And the best and only way to achieve this is through a
unitary form of government.”
In three months, soon after Gowon came to power, MP was
first, reluctant to state categorically, and later, stated emphatically that
federal arrangement was the best for Nigeria:
“(First) …Perhaps our unity lies through (sic) a federal
system of government.
(Then)…But still, we are convinced that federalism could suit a society such as
ours better than a unitary government.”
(Again)…As far as we are concerned, Nigeria needs a federation in which the
center is strong enough to strong enough to sustain the nation…One thing is
clear to the people of this country and that is their goal-which is the unity
of the country.”
As stated earlier, “unity” meant different things to the
different newspapers. Unity for the New Nigerian, in the wake of the mass
exodus of the Igbo from the North, was a consolation that:
“out of this tragedy has (sic) emerged one great lesson and
a guiding principle to generations to come. This that to live as a nation, the
maturity of the mind, steadfastness and the appreciation of spiritual values
are desirable attitudes, and that these qualities must for in the philosophy on
which the new nation must subsist.”
It (NN) surmises further that this unity cannot be imposed
by force but slowly and gradually built on goodwill.
For Nigerian Tribune, the release of Awolowo from prison
marks the “beginning of new crusade of a new social and political force towards
building of a Nigerian nation welded together by genuine unity and strength”.
For WAP, “everyone from every part of the country stands to
gain by the spirit of oneness among the people.”
Unity did not, however necessarily translate to national
unity, unity discourses were also unity of the ethnic groups/blocs in
contention. Tribune for instance quibbled:
“It is high time the Yoruba took a firm stand on a number of
issues confronting the region in particular and (the) uneasy federation in
general.”
The NN stated that “our leaders at this weeks meeting must
bear in mind that they have the support of some twenty-nine million people.
They must not fail us.”
While the East was preparing for war in the late 1966,
Morning Post stated “Anyone who condones or abets any such move as secession
today must be regarded as an accomplice of those who want to sabotage the
Nigerian union.”
This “unity” constituted the battle cry of the newspapers
even as they pursued different goals in the crisis leading up to the civil war.
Signifiers of Fragmentation
Wale Adebanwi also found signifiers of a county united in
its fragmentation. As much as newspapers helped the idea of unity, they also
constantly reflected the deep divisions in the country, which lead to the
signifiers of doom.
WAP seemed to have captured the polarized nature of the
politics of that era when in its attack on an unnamed daily in ‘Northern
Nigeria’ (apparently New Nigeria) it charged:
“(I)s trying hard to introduce polemics into the politics
of Nigerian again. We have in mind an article published in the 19 April issue
of that paper which called for the abrogation of unitarism as a tenet of
Nigeria’s reconstruction program … At this stage in our national metamorphosis,
we regard it as calculated sabotage or incitement for anybody to do any act
overt or covert to engender tribal bitterness or sectional ill feelings. …”
For much of the time, the newspapers also took on one
another over some of the crucial issues at stake. For instance, when a British
envoy visited the north, New Nigerian expressed the hope that:
“Sir Francis (the British envoy) will learn something of the
feelings and opinions of the North regarding international and other issues in
which Britain is involved and covey these to the British and if the North has
strong feelings on various matters which feature in the headlines, this is the
opportunity to pass them on.”
In response, WAP argued vehemently against the internalization
of the crisis at this point. It pointed out that Sir Francis is not responsible
for reporting feelings in the North to the Head of the Military Government nor
is the North the responsibility of the British government. WAP argued further
that the editorial exposed where NN stood on the crisis and who its ‘masters’
were. Subsequently, the South based paper called
“Upon the good people of Nigeria who have welcomed the Army
take over (sic) to see this issue in its true light and watch out… The only
interpretation therefore is that the British envoy is being invited to hear
their (Northerners’) grievances, process them and report to Britain. Surely,
Britain is not the governing authority unless there is more to it than meets
the eye.”
For the NN, the day of mourning for Easterners killed in the
pogrom in the north was something “every reasonable and right-thinking Nigerian
would loathe’. It asked what while the East mourned those it lost in the aftermath
of the July 1966 coup, was it not also important to mourned those who died
during the mad outrages of January 1966 (in the Igbo led coup).
WAP in turn advocated that the federal government imposed a
collective fine taxable people of the north to ensure that the sum of 27,000
pound sterling was paid to the Easterners displaced by the pogrom in the north.
During negotiation at Aburi in Ghana, the NN preoccupation
was not the unity of Nigeria, rather it pressed the leaders of the North not to
“seek concession and reach compromise purely for the sake of unity that cannot
stand the test of time.”
WAP was diametrically opposed to this stand as it urge the
delegates to recognize that the first essential is for an agreement to be
reached unanimously on the form of association that can hold the various
components of the federation together with a minimum of friction.
The Morning Post will have none of all these pandering to accommodate
the grievances of the East. Long before the federal military government thought
of taking first a police action, then a small scale military action, and later
a full scale military action against the Eastern regional government, MP stated
that it felt
“compelled to repeat the call we made a few weeks ago that
the government should be ruthless in maintaining the peace in the country.. The
Supreme Commander (Gowon therefore should) go all out to crush the saboteurs.”
Signifiers of Doom
The newspapers during this period were also given to
predicting doom as consequence either for an action or inaction, for or against
the interests that each of the newspapers served.
MP argued that disintegration would “spell disaster for
Nigeria… and ends in everlasting sorrow.”
New Nigerian echoes the coming-doom thesis, arguing that the
nation trembles on the brink of anarchy and despair. In September 1966, NN
states that “A full scale civil war of the most awful kind is a prospect that
must be feared and avoided at all costs.”
The Nigerian Tribune (NT) states “ the nation is sitting on a
tinderbox.” As tensions rose with discussions over the withdrawal of troops to
their region of origin (particularly northern troops in the West), NT argued
that “What we (WEST) needs is a crash program to recruit and train not less
than 4,300 Yoruba within a few weeks. This will bring the quota of the Yoruba
in line with those of other ethnic groups.” NT is emphatic in its call: “Let
the Northern troop go.”
When Ojukwu stated the East would not secede “unless it is
pushed” , NN states “What is the East up to? Does she mean what she says or is
she playing for time? We can’t understand why the East is so apparently intent
to inflict more hurt upon itself.
Few months later, NT asked the federal government to face
down the East quickly: “if we have the force and the will to bring the East into
line by armed intervention, let it be done now with dispatch.” Nigerian Tribune
considers both the Hausa north and the Igbo East as potential foolish outsiders
who were contriving to invoke doom on
Yorubaland. It further states that Yorubas must not allow people on the lunatic
fringe to involve them in the present mass killings and molestation.
WAP emphasized during these difficult times that “until the
East is pacified, the question of considering the future association of Nigeria
is out of the question.”
Signifiers of Symbolic Insult
Central to the foregoing discourse were strong negative or abusive
words and images of the OTHER.
Shortly after the ascendancy of Gowon, WAP wondered at the “strange
nationalism” of the NN, which had under Ironsi trumpeted “domination” by the Igbo
and was now no longer concerned with domination.
“At one time, domination stunt used to fill the pages of
some of these newspapers… These days, domination stunt disappeared ..given way
to the kind of oneness desired by the paper.”
The WAP even speculated under Ironsi, given NN’s attitude
towards the regime, that “government might be provoked to take precipitate
action against it.”
When MP and Daily Sketch (owned by the central ruling party’s
ally government in the West) attacked each other in late 1966, WAP described
them as “birds of the same nest” which had played identical roles at all
material times in the crises that have torn Nigeria apart.” The Pilot states
that this vicious circle of government newspapers contains germs of the their
own destruction and maybe soon canceling out themselves.
All the rival newspapers were guilty of exaggerating little
incidents and creating imaginary stories to suit them. In reference to the
famed elocution of Oxford-educated Ojukwu, MP warned that “when all the English
of Oxford has been spoken and the British encyclopedia exhausted, the people of
Nigeria will still down to finding how best they can live together.”
NN excoriated Pilot for its type of journalism “such an
information medium should hag its head in shame for helping to tear the country
into pieces.” In a veiled reference to the North which had a preponderance of
beggars, the Pilot stated that whether the East got assistance or not after the
pogrom, it would survive, since Easterners are not a race of beggars.”
Conclusion
It was clear in the period under review that these
journalists saw their media as representatives of the warring regions. Perhaps
one major indicator of the acrimonious battle was a two part front page
editorial by the Tribune after the collapse of the First Republic titled, “Scrap
the Sketch 1 & 2”
The NN put the war before the war in a sharp focus when it
noted with unusual candor that even the NN is conscious of its fall from grace,
but it has always sought to find the truth. It has not always succeeded … but
having said that, let us acknowledge that the Nigeria’s press-even the
government-controlled ones- can do much more to restore peace in the country
than they are doing.”
As William Connolly observes, drive to wholeness becomes
destructive for these newspapers when they all obsessively interpret the
cultural identity they participate in to be the best available copy of a true
model and place that model above the threshold of legitimate interrogation in
politics.” What is required is for us and the organizations we represent is to
challenge the reductions, simplifications and selective mobilizations of
resentment through which self-proclaimed partisans of the ethnic, group or
regional bloc appropriate the most potent symbols of morality, faith virtue and
belonging.”
Will history repeat itself? Let us take a page of lesson
from history.
