NIGERIAN TELEVISION AUTHORITY AND POLITICAL STABILITY IN THE FOURTH REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
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NIGERIAN TELEVISION AUTHORITY AND POLITICAL STABILITY IN THE FOURTH REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, which has seen four general elections (1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011), has yet to demonstrate significant indications of democratic growth. All of these elections were marred by scandals, and their processes and outcomes were plagued by credibility and legitimacy difficulties.
Clearly, all of these contribute to the absence of adequate policy formation and effective execution required for the betterment of people’s living standards and the overall growth of the country. The total result is that ordinary residents appear to have progressively lost faith in the system that replaced the military government,
while the rulers and ostensible representatives of the people—who live in affluence that does not correspond to the country’s current economic realities—seem unconcerned. It appears that the small improvement in the conduct of the 2011 general elections will take some time to be felt fully.
It goes without saying that the media plays an important part in a country’s development. The mass media is commonly seen as communication channels capable of simultaneously addressing a diverse audience with a consistent message. They often cover a wide range of topics, including the economics (Meyer 2002, Soola 2004).
The mass media disseminates ideas and new information to a specific audience in society. According to Tosanisunm (2004), the mass media not only educates, informs, and entertains, but they also persuade and catalyse social mobilisation.
In other words, the mass media can be seen as a powerful information service because of their ability to reach every part of society. They have the power to convey information about issues and products.
This study’s concentration is on electronic media, which includes radio and television. The intricacy of these communication media defined them as modern communication marvels. As the twentieth century began, a technique was established in which an electromagnetic impulse could be delivered across the air without the use of wires, allowing for long-distance voice transmission.
Electronic media are machines or institutions that allow for the simultaneous delivery of information to a large and diverse audience. Although electronic media are channels via which information is transferred to the public via various sorts of media, they symbolise man’s endeavour to relate to and engage with other men.
It is apparent that the use of technology has improved communication both nationally and internationally. 13 In his contribution to the influence of broadcasting in a developing society, Aniabona (2007) emphasised that electronic media are powerful and effective.
Instruments for accomplishing national goals, such as widespread education for both children and adults in order to achieve the stated goals in economic growth, healthcare, political and social awareness,
political stability, self-reliance, and national identity, among other things. In general, the media is regarded as serving three functions: information, education, and entertainment.
These are the traditional social functions that the media provide to the public, but they are also equally applicable in a broader sense in the quest of economic development.
It may be argued that the media, by teaching, informing, and entertaining, makes society, society members, or the nation, as well as society’s leadership, aware of the need and necessity of doing specific economic development developments or processes.
In addition to these three main roles of media, there is another role of persuasion, in which media are viewed as powerful tools for applying persuasive attempts to influence people’s actions in a specific way. As a result, the function of the media in providing the public with vital information to achieve development or change goals is seen.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.2
Nigerian Politics and the State
Nigeria’s politics have deep roots in the country’s colonial past. The primary aspects in the country’s socioeconomic and political fortune and misfortune, as stated in various scholarly works, have served to demonstrate that the likelihood of Nigeria’s existence, in its current form, is fairly low if not for the colonialists’ superior firepower and diplomacy.
They attributed this to the existence of various ethnic nations, which were forcibly merged in 1914. In essence, the colonial state and its successor lacked legitimacy. As a result, it’s hardly unexpected that authoritarianism became its defining feature. On the other side, it aided in increasing ethnic consciousness and the prominence of the ethnic factor, but primarily in negative ways.
Coleman (1958), Crowder (1962), Schwarz (1965), Lewis (1965), Sklar (1966), and Dudley (1973) are scholarly books that have sufficiently explored all of them. Similarly, in his fundamental work on the concept of the two publics,
Ekeh (1975) crystallised the deleterious impacts of colonialism and primordialism on Nigeria’s sociopolitical evolution. Weber (1948) had used patrimonialism to explain similar issues on a larger scale much earlier.
For explanations of Nigeria’s problem, authors such as Theobold (1982), Callaghy (1987), and Ikpe (2000) have taken the patrimonial perspective under various names such as decentralised patrimonialism, neo-patrimonialism, and the patrimonial administrative state.
In a similar vein, Joseph (1991) adopted the prebendalist perspective to explain the dynamics of sociopolitical behaviour in Nigerian public life. Overall, the problems linked with the political trends noted by these authors include clientelism, godfatherism, nepotism, ineffective administration, political corruption, poverty, and political instability.
With the ecstatic restoration of civilian government in 1999, hope was reignited once more. This was meant to be a new beginning and an end to the long period of military control and its features like intimidation, personalisation, egoism, hedonism, sycophancy, and poverty.
Surprisingly, nothing has changed drastically. This, in our opinion, can be attributed in part to the “pacted nature of the process that mid-wived the country’s current democratisation.”
4 Most of these researchers’ conceptualizations often point to the state’s incapacity in Nigeria as a result of the officials in control of various public institutions and their backers, the godfathers.
To have a better understanding, we can place all of these theories within the context of relatively newer concepts like social closure and state capture. Parkin defines social closure as “the process by which a social collective seeks to maximise rewards by limiting access to resources and opportunities to a small circle of eligibles.”
This means singling out specific physical characteristics as the justification for exclusion. Almost any group attribute – race, language, social background, religion – can be exploited as long as it can be used to monopolise specific, typically economic, opportunities…. Its goal is always to deny foreigners social and economic chances.5
In modern Nigeria, this practice of social closure is carried out with little or no restraint since the players have grabbed the machinery of the state for their own benefit more than ever before. The explanations under the idea of state capture can be adopted in this way.
State capture, as defined by the World Bank, is defined as “the actions of individuals, groups, or firms in both the public and private sectors to influence the formation of laws, regulations, decrees, and other government policies to their own advantage as a result of the illicit and non-transparent provision of private benefits to public officials.”
6 While the structures that are seized or captured are the legislative, executive, judiciary, and regulatory agencies, the captors are private corporations, political leaders, political parties, and other special interest groups.
The following explanations on the nature of the Nigerian state and its politics can be divided into two parts. first of all, “ethnic consciousness and, by extension, ethnic politics is mostly exploited by the modern day Nigerian political class for its own selfish interest.”
7 Second, the behaviours of transactional and predatory political and economic leaders are made possible in great part by the state’s frailty, as evidenced by its fast eroding autonomy and functionality.
Furthermore, the second point explains why “beneficiaries of the state’s loss of its moderating role” may never freely fight for its restoration, as the democratisation process is plainly weakened by their efforts.
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