In Nigeria, what is news?
To constantly follow events in the media should ordinarily place a person in a position to promptly appreciate new events and happenings around him and elsewhere. In Nigeria however, an ardent newspaper reader or radio listener or television viewer cannot be too sure to read, hear or see new events.
It is not that media practitioners in Nigeria are not proactive enough to meet their mandate of public enlightenment. The problem has to do with the way things happen in circles in the country. Past events recur as if they are happening for the first time making it appear that Nigerians learn very little from history.
For instance, the latest story in town which is about bomb blasts is not new. We have had many in the last four years. Before them, we had armed robbery followed by kidnapping. They are all variants of insecurity which daily threaten the life of the average citizen. The only difference is in style and intensity. The frequency is now being used by some ‘citizen journalists’ to raise alarms that keep people panicking.
Only 4 days ago, there was panic in some parts of Ogun and Lagos states, over reports that 18 suspected Boko Haram members had invaded the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, killing 11 civilians and nine police officers.
Consequently, law enforcement agencies now have additional burden of debunking alarms. In Yenagoa, residents of Yenizue-Gene area who thought they saw a bomber the other day were shocked but relieved when anti-bomb squad investigators found that the bag the man was carrying contained only electric wire! If rumour is not news, then items that can make news in our clime will be quite little. Again, if the argument of media scholars that news is difficult to define is to be followed, Nigeria may have to craft its own definition of news because all over the world, Journalists find news as they break but in Nigeria they predict news. For example, following the recent Nyanya bomb blast, we all knew that there would be traffic gridlock on that road several days after.
Avoidable news galore-long queues of vehicles waiting for manual checking and several commuters trekking to work would be the news but it would not be new. It has happened before, it is happening now and except God touches the hearts of the bombers, the same reaction would happen again.
The situation is similarly true of other spheres of life. When President Goodluck Jonathan convened the newest version of our national dialogue schemes, we knew that delegates would be brought to Abuja to earn (sorry, receive) salaries and allowances that have no bearing with public service salary scales. Are the delegates not public workers? Of course what would be the news during the period would concern delegates fighting over the composition of committees.
That the delegates would also ask for extension of time
In Journalism, facts are sacred. Thus it is important to be sure of the facts of a story before reporting it. There is doubt however if this is true of
Nigeria
would be news. The news of the period would also include summons rather than invitation to finance officials like Minister Okonjo Iweala the same way our legislators operate. In earnest, Northern and Southern delegates would, like their ancestors, bicker over revenue allocation and religion. At the end of the dialogue, the news would shift to those who could not get into the current conference with ample publicity on the need for another one because it is better to talk than to war.
Last week, some sections of the media publicised the news that Governor Babangida Aliyu was heading for the Senate at the end of his tenure as Governor of Niger State. Is that new? Ideally, news hunters ought to be more interested in any second term governor who is not so disposed. If they find one, it would be the mother of all news. To report that certain people were putting pressure on a politician to contest election to an office is a news item that is obviously not new in Nigeria.
It would certainly be news if Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, the current spokesman of the Senate returns to the legislature in 2015. It is not likely because some traditional authorities in Abia South Senatorial District have endorsed him for the position of governor of his state in next year’s election. The real news in the story is that after endorsing him, they then asked him to declare his ambition without further delay.
Former Kano Sate Governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau was the other week formally received into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by President Jonathan himself. What is that erstwhile liberal progressive doing in the PDP? A colleague answered with many questions such as: Are you sure? Do you think he will be there for long? Perhaps he is already on his way back, I replied. After all, if all the PDP Governors who defected to the All Peoples Congress (APC) not long ago are going back it will neither be new nor news.
In Journalism, facts are sacred. Thus it is important to be sure of the facts of a story before reporting it. There is doubt however if this is true of Nigeria. For long I used to wonder how one of my former colleagues always knew the proceedings of a press conference at which he was not present. I have since found that he designed a template for Nigerian news. Ask him for instance to cover an event to be addressed by our Agriculture Minister, he would produce a report in which Dr Akinwumi Adesina would confidently tell the nation about some innovations that would employ millions of youths.
His report can hardly be faulted as our Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development talks all the time about millions. Indeed, it has just announced that it registered 2.5 million farmers in NorthEast zone as part of measures to leverage the nation’s Agricultural transformation agenda. The fund for all of this will be captured in the budget. So, where is the budget now? It is as usual not ready four months into the same year it covers. That also is not news because it happens every year. What then is news?