As the media set agenda for 2019 polls
Series of stakeholders’ interventions including the media contributed to the success of the recently concluded 2015 General Elections. Our correspondents report the media appraisal and agenda setting for the 2019 elections at a forum…
Abbas Jimoh & Oyewole, Lagos
Last December 2014, Chairman of the Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust titles Malam Kabiru Yusuf, charged Nigerians to ensure that they become the ultimate winners of the 2015 general elections.
He equally urged the media to spearhead the push for free expression and ensure that all stakeholders align with it.
Yusuf who is also the Vice Chairman of the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) gave the charge at the formal launch of the 30-page ‘The Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage’ which was adopted by all stakeholders and which was a product of months of deliberations and inputs.
The publication and its launching were facilitated by the Democratic Development Project (DGDII) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Though the 2015 elections had come and gone, media practitioners and other stakeholders decided to appraise their roles and conducts at the 2015 elections and also to commence early preparation for the 2019 elections. Thus a twoday stakeholders’ review meeting on Media and the 2015 elections organised by the DGDII project of the UNDP and the European Union in Lagos last Tuesday and Wednesday.
The meeting was convened to review the performance of the media in the electoral process with the objective of documenting lessons learnt, best practices and challenges to provide unique points of entry for future interventions. The meeting was also to contribute to setting an agenda for the consolidation of democracy in the country.
In attendance at the meeting were media and electoral stakeholders from the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), media unions, media regulatory agencies, academic institutions, media professionals, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), advocates of development communication, gender advocates, and international development partners among others.
The meeting also heard presentations and discussions by electoral and media experts in plenary sessions over the two-day and covering topics, including the Media, Electoral Management System and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria; Voter Education and Media Coverage of the 2015 Elections: an Assessment, the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage and other legal/ professional frameworks; Capacity Building Initiatives: Relevance and Results; Online and Social Media; what value added to the integrity of the elections and the Media, Elections and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria: Roadmap towards 2019.
At the end of the sessions and technical meetings it was agreed in a communiqué that the use of ICT (card readers and PVCs) significantly contributed to the integrity of the 2015 elections. However, the absence of a robust synergy between INEC and the security agencies, inadequate communication with citizens at the grass roots and gaps in knowledge of electoral processes and roles by some security agents and INEC ad hoc staff deployed for elections impeded citizen participation in the elections at several locations.
It was also observed that the timelines for voter education was not strictly adhered to, resulting in late commencement of voter education efforts. Although there were voter education outreaches at the LGAs, much of the voter education efforts were concentrated in the urban centres, to the detriment of Nigerians in the rural areas.
Also, political parties neglected the task of voters’ education to other stakeholders and the political campaigning was mostly not issue based, focusing on personalities, resulting in making only the major parties having robust access to the media.
On the media side, it was noted that although there was a reduction unlike in the past, some media practitioners were attacked in the course of their duties during the elections. And also that sources for election related stories are skewed in favour of men and the major political parties, to the detriment of other political parties, women, youth and people with disabilities, even when some media personnel who worked as trainers in the capacity development initiatives in the lead up to the 2015 elections did not walk the talk in their practice.
It was also noted that the social media can have a huge impact on events offline as manifested during the 2015 elections. Additionally, social media provided global access to election related data and contributed to the integrity of the elections with attendant positive perceptions of Nigeria’s electoral process. However, there was a prevalence of dangerous speech on social media and the use and spread of unverified information.
It was however seen that lessons learnt from the trainings were incorporated into the teaching of Mass Communication students at the various institutions.
The communiqué therefore recommend that government should sustain the gains of the 2015 elections by ensuring the appointment of core electoral staff and that the next leadership is based on proven competence and integrity.
It suggested that key INEC technical staff should be retained to provide institutional memory, while INEC should continually update the Voter Register and PVC production/ distribution to avoid last minutes rush.
It was also recommended that electoral reform efforts should include the strengthening of INEC’s operational control over security during elections, including the use of surveillance cameras in collation centres.
INEC was told to digitize the collation of election results and improve on its logistics management and contingency planning ahead of future elections, and to also decentralize and improve all its information and communication structures for better outreach.
The media on their part were told that publicly funded broadcasters should be established in a manner which effectively guarantees their independence from political or other partisan influences, especially in editorial matters.
It also recommended that all stateowned broadcasting stations should be removed from the direct control of the Minister of Information (at the Federal level) or the Commissioners for Information (at the State level).
Existing laws establishing stateowned media should be abrogated and replaced with new laws which reflect the principles of broadcasting independence and that media practitioners should develop their capacity to understand existing processes and procedures relating to elections to enable improved reportage of the electoral process.
The media were also told to engage in investigative reportage of parties/ candidates/issues to support informed decision making by the electorate, while they should also provide equal access to all political parties/candidates and underrepresented groups including women, youth and people with disabilities.
The communiqué told media practitioners to advocate for a Code of Conduct for Media Owners which would include mechanisms to ensure that media they do not interfere in editorial matters, and that they should collectively address the challenge of ownership in the editorial content of privately-owned media outlets, especially in the light of the current environment where a large number of media organizations are owned by politicians or business persons with clear political interests and affiliations.
It suggested that legal redress should be encouraged for any infractions by offline, online and social media and that the civil society should join efforts to counter hate speech online and on social media.
Media regulators were told to review extant codes to provide stiffer penalties and sanctions for violations of regulations, and that an Independent Fund for media development should be set up.
Political parties were urged to run issue- based campaigns, effectively contribute to voters’ education and develop media engagement skills/strategies in order to reach the grassroots, and should also make deliberate efforts to include underrepresented groups as party candidates.
In one of the sessions registered parties under the aegis of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) call for the repel of the 2010 Electoral Act and the evolution of new of electoral laws for the 2019 General Elections.
Chairman of IPAC and national chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP) Dr. Yunusa Tanko said the existing electoral laws was not all inclusive when it was being worked out hence the many loopholes inherent in it.
“Knowing that amendments are usually not the best options especially in this situation, we are calling for repel of the electoral act due to the flaws that are having negative effects on the nation’s democracy and good governance. The present law did not have the inputs of the critical stakeholders including parties hence it was design to favour one party at the expense of the collective democratic interests. For instance, the issue of defections across party lines is too serious not to have been clearly spelt out in the electoral laws,” Tanko said.
However, the UNDP-DGD Project II Election Expert, Prof. Bolaji Eyinla suggested the Commission should retain some members of Prof. Jega’s advisory team to sustain institutional memory and better planning for the 2019 elections.
Also, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) said it is restrained from imposing sanctions on broadcast stations who allegedly flaunted the code of conduct for broadcasting operations during the 2015 election process due to court cases on the alleged infractions.
Director in the office of the NBC’s Director General, Armstrong Idachaba who spoke at the review meeting said over 30 broadcast stations were sanctioned by the commission for their indiscretions majorly on political broadcast.