8 Miles

Could the Nigerian media be sabotaging Nigerian democracy? 1. I am beginning to fear that one of the greatest threats to Nigerian democracy may not be the military, the politicians, or even the ballot thieves, but the very journalists entrusted with protecting the public from them. 2. A democracy does not die only when soldiers seize power. 3. Sometimes, it dies quietly, while journalists sit politely and watch politicians dismantle its foundations. 4. Consider the curious spectacle called Nyesom Wike's media chat. 5. Here is a politician who assembles some of Nigeria's supposedly finest journalists, seats himself at an elevated table, almost like a monarch receiving his subjects, while the journalists arrange themselves below him, two or three on either side. 6. And then the performance begins. 7. Wike speaks. They listen. 8. Wike boasts. They nod. 9. Wike makes extraordinary political declarations. They look on like children looking at their parents. 10. He talks about what he has done, what he intends to do, and what nobody can stop him from doing. 11. Yet the people whose profession demands interrogation appear strangely reluctant to interrupt, challenge, demand evidence, or insist on accountability. 12. At what point did journalism become an exercise in watching a politician speak? 13. In serious democracies, whether on the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera or elsewhere, the journalist is not expected to be intimidated by the office of the person being interviewed. 14. The interviewer represents the public's right to know. 15. But in these Nigerian media spectacles, one wonders whether the journalists have forgotten whom they represent. 16. The politician occupies the throne. 17. The journalists occupy the gallery. 18. And the Nigerian people, whose interests ought to dominate the conversation, become spectators of a carefully arranged political performance. 19. There are also troubling questions about money. 20. Claims from @atiku 's camp has asked how Wike sponsors his media chats. Others believes these journalists are receiving enormous payments for participating in political media engagements. 21. Such allegations require evidence, not mere repetition. 22. But surely Nigerians deserve to know who finances these programmes, what the broadcasters receive, whether individual journalists are compensated, and whether public resources are involved. 23. A journalist who exchanges independence for political favour has not merely sold out his profession, he has mortgaged the public's right to truth. 24. And here lies another contradiction. 25. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the country's highest official, has offered relatively few opportunities for sustained, unscripted questioning by the Nigerian press. 26. Yet Nyesom Wike, who is not the president, enjoys repeated national broadcasting opportunities in which his political declarations often appear to dominate the proceedings. 27. Are these genuine interviews, or are we witnessing the gradual conversion of journalism into political advertising, a psychological operation by the Nigerian journalist? 28. Some Nigerians suspect that the purpose of these appearances is to condition the electorate into believing that the APC's victory in 2027 is inevitable, regardless of public dissatisfaction. 29. Whether that suspicion is correct or not, journalists should be interrogating such narratives, not simply providing the microphones through which they are amplified. 30. The journalist's duty is not to make power comfortable. 31. It is to make power accountable. 32. When Wike makes a questionable claim, ask for evidence. 33. When he boasts about influencing elections, ask whether his conduct respects democratic principles. 34.When he threatens journalists or political opponents, ask what gives him such authority. 35. When he refuses to answer, insist on the question 36. That is journalism 37. Not the carefully folded hands, the nervous smiles Page 1 of 2