Our mediated politics

If you find a society that has stagnated over many decades despite all efforts, look at that country’s media because the media have a power that no other individual, group or institution possess to the same extent, not even government itself. This is the power of meaning and attention. The media name and define people, things, and events, and compel public attention to them in many ways. This is then reproduced again and again until it becomes ‘true’ or ‘common sense’, however incorrect or true.

The Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci calls this ‘hegemony’, a power that, he says, and I agree, the media possess more than any other institution of society. The family, the educational system, the workplace, religion, and government all have this power too, but none comes close to the media. But how so? First, there is politics. And then, there is the representation of politics in the media, and therefore, in public consciousness, since it is the politics represented in the media that sticks in the public mind, rather than what may have actually happened.

In this sense, then, the representation is far more crucial than the represented. This is what gives the media their power in politics and in society more broadly. In other words, what we otherwise call news is actually power. It shapes, even determines, who society pays attention to and how. Media representation therefore has consequences for ideas, people, and things, beyond what any government can attain.

The problem is that the representation of politics in the media is itself a political activity. It is to ‘re-present’, as in to present again, rather merely ‘reporting’ politics. And since in politics, meaning and attention are the ultimate power, media power is simply political power too. How the media uses this power can be far more consequential for the fortunes of a country than the so-called power of ‘the people’, and even of the government. People intimately familiar with the media know that mediated politics is not just a professional journalistic activity, but also as intensely political as the contest for votes or political positions.

All journalists and all media reporting politics are not just doing journalism, they are also doing politics, whatever else they claim. This is true in all societies, but even more so in Nigeria. Nigeria is often said to have the freest media in Africa. But I personally think it is more accurate to say that Nigeria has the most irresponsible media in the world. It has just enough freedom, but with very little responsibility to go with it. Nigeria has not made much progress politically and economically since at least 1945 precisely because our media have not changed ideologically since that date. If there has been any change, it has been in the direction more of the same.

What has not changed since 1945 is how our media use their power of meaning and attention, particularly on matters of politics. The media in Nigeria is older than the country itself by almost fifty years. Indeed, by 1914, when Nigeria was formed, there were said to be no less than 10 newspapers in Lagos. By most historical accounts, these newspapers were politically Pan-African, Pan-Nigerian, and anti-colonial. In his book, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891, for example, J. F A. Ajayi cited copiously from newspapers of the time how they stood up for what we now call “the North” during the British conquest of the northern emirates in the early 1900s.

This Pan-Nigerian political attitude continued even in the early years of ‘native’ political activity in Nigeria in the 1920s and 30s. It all changed after 1945 however, and especially with the emergence of Tribune in 1948, when our newspapers began to take and demonstrate what the political scientist, Prof. Adigun Agbaje calls particularistic ethnic, regional and religious tendencies in their reporting, rather than nationalist ones. This particularistic political attitude in the press dominated the First, Second, and Third Republics, and consumed them all. Yet, the same political questions that were raised by the press in 1960 are still being raised today in 2021, and some of the solutions deemed unacceptable yesterday are now regarded as most preferable today. No country can make progress in the face of such confusion.

But to conclude, let me give a few examples. The reader would have been aware of much reporting on Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu lately. There are three major issues involved in both cases. There is, first and foremost, the issue of the government’s criminal charges of treason against the duo for calling for the breakup of Nigeria, and for stockpiling arms presumably to that end. Second, there is the issue of actual violence committed or incited by the duo or violence committed by others associated with them, especially the sit-at-home orders dished out by IPOB. And third, there is the issue of their rights as citizens under law, even when they or others associated with them are facing criminal charges.

Nigerian media have not treated these issues equally. A majority of the media have tended to be silent on the first two issues, and rather loud on the third in terms of story placement, volume, frequency of reporting, framing, and every other tool in the reporter’s toolbox for doing politics with ‘news’. For example, When Nnamdi Kanu was arrested, just about two newspapers in the country led with the story and picture of him emasculated in handcuffs, which depicted government’s power. However, when a judge ordered him to be brought to court, the same papers that were silent on his arrest went ballistic with banner headlines. But then a few weeks later when IPOB members attacked and killed several Nigerians while enforcing a sit-at-home order, the same newspapers went silent again. In political terms, this is tacit approval support for IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu.

Consider another recent example. When some Nigerians were hacked to death in Jos by other Nigerians, only one national newspaper led the day with this issue on the frontpage. The rest demoted the issue to second, third or fourth level of importance in terms of placement on the front page, indicating, in other words, that for that day, Nigerians should consider the killing of their compatriots as less important than who becomes the chairman of PDP. Moreover, the victims were identified as ‘travelers’, even after the police had identified them clearly in its statement.

Then again, just as sadly, other Nigerians were killed in the same Jos less than two weeks later. The same newspapers that treated a similar event just two weeks earlier with levity went ballistic with banner headlines now, this time identifying the perpetrators as ‘suspected herdsmen’, even without any official confirmation. What changed? The crimes remained the same: Nigerians killed other Nigerians. But the stories are treated differently identity politics of presumed victims and perpetrators changed. In other words, when some Nigerians of a certain identity are victims of violence, call them ‘travellers’ or something else. When the same group are presumed aggressors, call them ‘suspected herdsmen’, a phrase to which every adult in Nigeria knows to whom it refers.

We may call this political journalism, or even ‘peace journalism’, but it is also crude and dangerous politics of the kind that not only holds a country back but destroys it. And since this is the dominant form of journalism here one wonders how Nigeria has survived to this day, but not how it has remained the way it is. But in case the reader missies the whole point, this is not about who is right or wrong in Nigeria’s political conflicts. I am simply saying how the media reports politics and conflict is dangerous for us all.

All journalists and all media reporting politics are not just doing journalism, they are also doing politics, whatever else they claim. This is true in all societies, but even more so in Nigeria. Nigeria is often said to have the freest media in Africa. But I personally think it is more accurate to say that Nigeria has the most irresponsible media in the world.