Tinubu no doubt understands the power of the media. His historical partnership with the Fourth Estate of the Realm has continued to grow both in essence and in relevance. Now, as President he has continued to court the same media in a manner no Nigerian President has ever done. He is not just a devoted partner of the Nigerian media, he is also a media owner.
In the chronicle of post-Independence Nigeria and the stormy struggle to beat the military out of the governance space and birth democracy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu stands out. Aside the old brigade of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and other political activists who fought hard to shoo the colonialists out of the way to herald the independence of Nigeria, no other politician has expended himself to the marrow to birth democracy better than Tinubu.
Not even among the pantheon of today’s ‘happy hour’ politicians serially angling to become President of Nigeria. No, not one is found. None has staked his resources, life and emotions in the manner Tinubu has done. He easily became the face of the democratic struggle after the ill-advised annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election result by the military. That maddening moment and devious design to truncate a globally acknowledged free and fair election pulled Tinubu out of the penumbra of political activism into the umbra of democratic agitation.
Tinubu stepped into the ring not bare knuckled but fully kitted. A huge war chest and a vast political network were handy as he mobolised men and women from Mainstreet to Broadstreet. His voice was heard in regular markets and in regulated markets. He inspired Nigerians from north to south. His command was a clarion call. Unarmed, yet when he called, a ‘troop’ of civilian army followed him to the streets, arenas, and any public space available. The streets became his habitat. Pro-democracy protests became his habit. Harassed, emotionally bruised, but he was unbroken. Unyielding. Unbowed. In the intervening months after the annulment, then head of state, General Sani Abacha, unleashed his lethal legion of murderous mob.
On June 2, 1994, Tinubu was arrested by the Abacha government, alongside five other former Senators namely; Ameh Ebute, Polycarp Nwite, Onyeka Okoroafor, Onyemechi Nwulu and Abu Ibrahim. They were charged with treasonable felony and kept in detention for 50 days after which they were released on bail on July 22. That was after the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) was founded on May 15, 1994. NADECO and other democratic coalitions gave Abacha hell.
Among the many pro-democracy bodies, NADECO was the frontline group and Tinubu was a front-row player. Active, not passive. Stubborn and unrelenting. He had to go on exile and became even more vociferous. He funded the media and CSOs. His push was for the military to declare MKO Abiola winner of the 1993 election and subsequently inaugurate him as the president. Tinubu and his squad of activists achieved a lot because they had a partner in the Nigerian media. A genre of gorilla journalism sprouted from the conventional guard. With support from Tinubu, this band of journalists peppered the military.
Tinubu no doubt understands the power of the media. His historical partnership with the Fourth Estate of the Realm has continued to grow both in essence and in relevance. Now, as President he has continued to court the same media in a manner no Nigerian President has ever done. He is not just a devoted partner of the Nigerian media, he is also a media owner.
On Wednesday, November 12, Tinubu towered many rungs higher than any other Nigerian president. He graced, in person, the annual conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and formally declared the conference open; making him the first sitting president to have ever played such role in the 21 years history of the editors’ annual conference. The media plays pivotal role in deepening democracy and strengthening its ramparts. In strong and well-established democracies, Presidents as a matter of routine take pride in attending media-organised events including dinners. This does not diminish the stature of the President, neither does it impair the independence of the media. On the contrary, when presidents attend media events in a democracy, it helps to build the requisite synergy and energy between the media and the executive as critical stakeholders in the democratic enterprise. Presidents of the United States take turn to attend the White House correspondents dinner every year. In 2019, it made headlines when the then President Donald Trump shunned the dinner for the third time in a row; a tradition kept by his predecessors. Remember, this is not a programme of the editors’ union of the United States but a dinner by a far smaller community of White House correspondents.
On April 30, 2024, then UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told journalists attending the 25th anniversary of UK’s Society of Editors conference in London, which he declared open, that it was okay if the media ‘clashed’ with the UK government as he highlighted the importance of media freedom in the UK and globally.
In his keynote, Sunak urged journalists to “keep doing what you do. Constantly questioning, investigating, seeking the truth…because as long as the British media continues to thrive, so will British democracy.”
In a democracy, leaders do not run away from the media. They help build the media such that it stays strong to effectively and constructively critique the government and play its ‘bridge’ role between the leaders and the people. This is why it is a negative cue for Nigeria’s democracy that it took a Tinubu, the fifth president since 1999, to buck the trend. It is the contempt previous presidents had for the media that made them keep away from the flagship conference of Nigerian editors.
Tinubu did not just attend the editors’ conference, he took notice of the trove of demands made by Eze Anaba, President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, on the perilous state of Nigeria media and why issues of duties on media production materials, establishment of Media Development Fund, tax exemptions, among others, should be given Presidential consideration, a wish-list the President said “is in my pocket.”
Nigeria media, just like global media, is distressed. It needs to be unhooked from the manacles of taxes and allied fiscal impositions just so it could still effectively play its social responsibility role while keeping its head up as a sustainable and profitable business. Here’s hoping that President Tinubu will ferret the wish-list out of his pocket and give it a Presidential consideration as soon as possible.
