Background
In the 1990s, many African countries started a transition from military rule or from one-party dictatorship, to multiparty elections that brought new governments into power. Some countriesâsuch as Ghana, Senegal, Malawi, Niger, Benin and many othersâconducted a series of elections that brought in a new era for them, even if there were little change in the living conditions of the people. From 1989 to 1997, at least 75% of African countries conducted multiparty elections (Burchard 2014).
Nigeria, the most populous country in the continent, and the largest economy in the continent after rebasing its economy in 2014 (BBC News 2014), launched a transition to civilian rule in 1998 after the death of its military leader, General Sani Abacha. On May 29, 1999, the newly elected president Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military head of state , was sworn in. Obasanjo was the first civilian president since Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, who was overthrown in December 1983 by the incumbent Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, then a Major General in the Nigerian army.
One of the promises made by President Olusegun Obasanjo was to tackle corruption, and he established two bodies, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).
The EFCC , established through an Act of Parliament in 2002, became operational in 2003. It was headed by a senior police officer, Nuhu Ribadu. In one of major revelations made about the level of corruption in Nigeria, Nuhu Ribadu made the following statement to the US Congress: âBetween 1960 and 1999, Nigerian officials had stolen or wasted more than $440 billion.1 That is six times the Marshall Plan, the total sum needed to rebuild a devastated Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War.â2
From 1999 to 2018 there have been several allegations of corruption against top Nigerian government officials, including some of the recent allegations against former petroleum minister under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madukwe. The former Central Bank governor of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had in 2013 written a letter to former president Goodluck Jonathan alleging that US $20 billion in revenues owed to the state had not been remitted by the Nigerian state oil company. An allegation the minister denied, but admitted that the amount not remitted was US $10.8 billion, which was to be paid for subsidies (Reuters 2013). Another major allegation was that against former national security advisor to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Sambo Dasuki, who was accused of embezzling US $2 billion meant for the purchase of arms against the violent Nigerian militant group, Boko Haram (BBC News 2015). Both cases are now under investigation by the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
What is noteworthy about these allegations of corruption is that there is no gender, regional or religious difference among Nigerian elites when it comes to these accusations of corruption. Alison-Mduekwe is a female Christian from Southern Nigeria, while Sambo Dasuki is a male Muslim from Northern Nigeria. This point is important because Nigeria is a country that is diverse, and regionalism and ethnicity (Ogingwo 1980; Yushaâu 2010) are major components in the psyche of the country. The news media though is supposed to be different. It is supposed to serve as a watchdog, focusing on truth and nothing but the truth for the benefit of society. But is the Nigerian media living up to this expectation, or is it blinded by primordial sentiments clouded in ethnicity and regionalism? What is the situation in other major African economies like South Africa and Kenya? We shall soon find out in this study that aims to explore the nature of media systems in Africa.
Why This Book?
There is a scholarly thirst for a media system study from an African perspective. This book is about the coverage of corruption scandals in the Nigerian press with an eye in other countries like South Africa and Kenya. It seeks to compare the reporting of corruption scandals by the northern and the Southern Nigerian newspapers in order to gain a deeper understanding of the countryâs media system.
Before the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 by British Colonial Governor Frederick Lugard, the protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria were independent of each other (Smith 1964), yet the establishment of institutions and the political character of the country, including the news media is still influenced by this colonial mindset. Nigeria is a complex, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country in West Africa. The issue of corruption is one of the problems bedevilling the country. The media, the press in particular, reflects and reports the happenings of a society; in addition, it also serves as a watchdog. Yet despite the purported function of the media as a watchdog, there are little or no major studies about the way the press reports allegations of corruption scandals in Nigeria. Therefore, there is the need for research that will explore the nature of such corruption scandals and develop a framework that will contribute towards guiding further research in scandal reporting.
The changing nature of society at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century has necessitated the need for different countries to evaluate their progress and position themselves in the struggle for development. The revolution in information and communication technology, the challenges of globalisation, the emergence of free market economies and the merger between international corporate organisations have all combined and made it easier for many countries to look inward and find out some of the reasons hindering their progress (see de Sardan 1999 for more on corruption in Africa).3
One of the key problems that hinders economic development is the phenomenon of corruption, particularly in African countries (Commission for Africa Report 2005). The phenomenon of corruption manifests itself in different forms ranging from accepting bribes, violation of procedure to enhance private benefit, intervention by political leaders in the judicial process, false claims or lack of execution of contracts and so on (Doig and Theobald 2000).
However, to understand the phenomenon of corruption, we need to consider other factors in our contemporary setting that might affect the way the act of governance is conducted, such as the transformations society is undergoing in politics, media, culture and technology (Tumber and Waisbord 2004a, b).
The report of the Commission for Africa4 has discussed some of the reasons why corruption retards the progress of a country. The report identified a lack of good governance, transparency and accountability as a result of the massive corruption, which is becoming associated with the identity of many African countries. Section 4.5 of the report states:
Corruption is a by-product of weak governance. It manifests itself in many waysâŠMuch of it takes place at the grassroots level and affects peopleâs daily lives, for example through bribes paid to bureaucrats, or non-delivery of services to poor people. The corrosive effect of corruption undermines all effort to improve governance and foster development. (Commission for Africa Report 2005: 142)
Nigeria, being one of the most influential African countries, is also in the forefront among the countries that suffer from endemic corruption, of which, according to the 2017 corruption perception index of Transparency International, Nigeria is at the bottom, ranking number 148 (Transparency International 2017).5
This research, therefore, intends to study the coverage of corruption in Nigeria as covered by both southern and northern newspapers. Following the introductory section in this chapter there are five further sections. The first section is a brief history of Nigeria from pre-colonial and colonial to post-colonial times. The second section covers political culture, which is essential in comparative research because scholars of comparative study see it as an integral part of cultural studies. The third section reviews the literature and the way other academic fields like sociology, political science, law and organisational communication view the definition of corruption. The fourth section looks at the meaning of scandal, which is the communication perspective of corruption, the fourth estate role of the media and investigative journalism. The final section reviews the different approaches used by media scholars from the era of the Four Theories of the Press to Hallin and Manciniâs Media Systems Theory, who used comparative research to understand various media systems; these approaches are discussed and modified, and a comparative methodology based on the specificity of the Nigerian media landscape is proposed for the purpose of an intra-national comparative research.
A Brief History of Nigeria
Nigeria is a diverse country whose contemporary name can be traced back to the colonial era. Prior to colonialism the regions that constitute present-day Nigeria already existed, with their different cultures and civilisation. About a thousand y...