 The 2023 general elections in Nigeria is about seven months away. Being a developing nation with a relatively young democracy compared to others, the role of the media cannot be overemphasized with such a huge population. The Nigerian media has a lot to do to make sure that voters get all the information they need to perform their civic duties during the elections. Now, given that Nigerian democracy is still nascent, the job of the media in trying to shape it is a very critical one. And this means that even though the media has been trying to do its best in terms of reportage and editorial analysis of the political and electoral processes, there's still a lot more that needs to be done. And that's why we're going to be having this conversation tonight. And joining me to discuss this live in the studio is Achike Choudi. He's a political analyst. And of course, joining us again is Mustafa Issa. He's the president's Nigerian Guild of Editors. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for joining us in the studio. A pleasure. This is a great conversation. I'm excited that we're having this conversation. But I'm going to start with you, Mr. Issa, being the chair of journalists. In my opening, I did say that the media is doing a lot. We have a lot on our plate already, of course. And when it's about this time, the NBC sends us settlers upon settlers and what to broadcast and what not to broadcast. But we can also get caught up with all the political gist making headlines and forget about the civic responsibility that we all have. And I want to ask you, why do we always have to pinch ourselves or remind ourselves that we all have a job to do, especially at this time of the year? I think, I'm also a broadcaster. The mind of somebody NBC, I think a few weeks ago, to all of us, we just let us know that there are rules guiding the covering policies in Nigeria. First of all, first of all, I want to know how to train our reporters to know what to do, how to do. For instance, they are not permitted to announce results. They are not allowed to announce the results in the state or the country. It is a job of the IMEC to officially announce the results. But again, I think Nigeria has made it politically our mission, and it put it that way. And years back, there was this fear that the government should even liberalize the broadcast sector. The fear that we could be used to convert. That fear is still not there. That is why the regulation we will have in the broadcast is different from the one of the newspapers, the media print. But again, as elections draw near, we should remind ourselves that we have a country. We remind ourselves that let us address the critical issues. I have seen much of attacks on individuals, not addressing the issues as it concerned the people. And I am worried about that really. And we should know that in the past, we focused too much on the people. We didn't question those who would have the effort to be elected. I had to give them the one election, then be a tuned. I hope you will be able to say this again. Let me come to you. He tried to give us reasons why the broadcast media was almost not allowed to grow as it should. For the fear of being used as a tool of overthrowing. But let's assess the media from 1990 till now. Let's look at how far we have come. And if we are still growing in lips and bounds, I have been to several African countries. The media is not as strong or has a voice as much as we do in Nigeria. Even though we complain that we seem to be stifled, there seems to be some space for us to be able to do some things. But I wanted to ask him that question and I am going to toss it to you. Why do we have to wait till election season to find our voices, especially in the civic space? Why can't it be a continuous conversation? I think we've always found our voices. But then again, I think the question is what kind of voices? What is the quality of voice? What kind of value do our voices add to the civic space? Because voices could be different. Voices could be positive. Voices could be pro-people. Voices could be pro-Nigeria. Voices could also be negative. And don't also forget that yes, we have a very vibrant media again. But what is the level of vibrancy? It could be positive. It could be negative. It could be the vibrancy that propagates and insists on having a free civic space. It could be the kind of vibrancy also that aims to attack or attacks the free civic space and all that. But the reality is that when you look at democracy itself as a process, as a political process, and you look at even the basic definition of democracy as governmental for the people and all that, there are certain ideals that democracy promises. And that's why when you talk about democracy, there are certain elements that accompany democratic practice. They talk about, of course, the proper practice of democracy. But the media, the role of the media, the performance of the media is crucial, is critical. In fact, people have tended to say that when you want to find out or determine the degree of freeness or openness of the civic space in a country, look at the degree of development of the media. And then that will give you an idea whether the country is free or not. That is how important the media is. And if you're looking at it from the Nigerian context, you realize that at least the framers of the constitution also had this belief about the importance of the media. And that is why the media has a constitutional provision, essentially, so that nobody could take it away. But again, also the political elites haven't also understood the importance of the media. They have also moved into that space. And they are there also exercising some level of control over the media. So when you now begin to talk about, for instance, even the freedom of the media itself, it is not something that is a given. In most cases, you find that the civic space is restricted because the media space is restricted as a result of the ownership of media houses, powerful media houses by powerful elites. And that, obviously, will not augur well for the maintenance of democracy within the polity. So when you look at it from 1990 to 1990, you could say, yes, Nigeria has always had vibrant media. But you can also not separate, but Nigeria also has all manners of endemic problems bedeviling the country. So you cannot also remove the media from some of these problems in the country. But I think what is of importance, and that's what a lot of people tend to overlook, is the fact that having a democracy in place does not, or having a civilian administration in place does not imply that you're having a democracy in place. Because some of the worst dictators who attacked African dictators now to be specific, who constantly attacked the civic space, were people who were supposedly elected by the people, they were not military dictators, they were civilians. And so there is always that tendency for us to tend to equate freedom and open civic space with democracy. It doesn't always follow. Because like I said, you have dictators that are also in control or try to manipulate the free civic space and try to restrict freedom of expression, try to restrict the media in the process of governance. And that becomes a problem. So I think by and large the media has relatively done well from 1990 to 1998. But when you also look at the fact that the media really in most cases is not in the hands of co-professionals who understand the ideals of democracy and who understand the ideas of journalism and who will do everything to protect the media space, you realize that you're going to continue to have this conflict where the media tends to act in ways that might not be in tandem with fulfilling the ideals or the purposes of the media. I'm going to come to you Mr. Issa because he's shaking the table that I am on. He's talking about the fact that a lot of political elites this time own media houses. Many of those were reworking. I've had conversations with journalists about how stories are being told and what perspectives these stories are being told and how it affects the civic space and how people perceive us. Again, what can we possibly do, as Elias stated, because we need these jobs. We have to do our jobs, but then we are somewhat constricted to certain narratives or certain ways of reportage. So how can we really say that we're doing the duties of journalists and fulfilling the duties of the Fourth Estate of the realm? That is Nigeria. Thank you for that question. You know, people like Chika Chika talk about the nationality of the media. It didn't start today, my sister. Even before independence, those who fought for independence also own media houses. Zeke of Africa owned a media house. It was a nuclear pilot. All of us had tribune, and he said that today. So it didn't start today, ownership of my politicians. But the question is, what are we supposed to do as professionals working in those media houses? For instance, if I'm a secretary from reporting because my boss is a political party, there are other media that will report. That is why I'm happy that Nigeria has the right to write you on the media. Nobody can kill history anyone in this country. Because if you feel that this media house can't take this, others will take it. And that is why today, people like Chika Chika, for instance, if others want to invite you to their programs, others will invite you. Nobody will close his voice. So my primary concern is professionals working in those media houses, work at their services. Are they professionals? Do they stick to their ethics or their profession? No matter who you work for, no matter who you work for, you must adhere to the ethics of your profession as a journalist. That is the way I see it. It's to be a threat. Even across the entire world. But this has all media houses. That is true. But look at where they operate. Even in America today, look at it. Even media houses take positions, punishments. Some are pro-republican, some are pro-democrats. Safety in the UK. So we are taking a different shape. That is why it's plurality. If you don't like the political class issue, the other one, all of them can operate the same. That is why I must kind of say... As much as I agree with you, Mr Eise, as much as I agree with you with the fact that there might be different narratives or different perspectives to it, that's a system that has been mastered. So you know that there is the Republicans and the Democrats and then the independents. Let's not even go to how grown our democracy is and how nascent it is. But then let's look at misinformation at the core of this. Because in a bid to also want to not play to the narrative of one person or trying to tell the story differently, there can be misinformation. How do we deal with that? Again, at the core of it is the ethics of journalism which you clearly ask, what is... Yes. There are times that people are misinformed because we're trying to douse tension or because of what party our boss belongs to which I'm not to tell the story or be alarmist. Some will say, well, let's not be alarmist. Let's just try to douse tension. Let's look at what the federal government is saying or the Ministry of Information has said to Daily Trust for breaking a story. Now, the federal government is taking a position of glamorizing the issue as opposed to unearthing truths that might help us to fight terrorism in the country. So, in that regard, how do we deal with it? How do we deal with the issue? Let's leave the BBC. It's not an Nigerian media house. But then there's a Daily Trust in the matter. Yeah. The issue of fake news is worldwide now because of social media, which throwing out data you can have access to whatever channel and you write anything you want to write. Those guys doing that are not journalists really. Even so, they call them scissor journalism. They're not trained. We are the professional. That's what I'm saying. If you work in a media house, are you at it as a professional? The issue of fake news is not because of Nigeria. It's all over the world today. Where Trump was President of the U.S., he said about fake news throughout his four years he was in power. But he could do anything about the issue of fake news. People now, they just manufacture a quote and attribute it to me or to anybody. But please, you should gauge that with the issue of the traditional media. I have seen a lot of stories that flag of social media. You can hardly find them in the traditional media. You know why? Because those guys, they have what we call gatekeepers. Not every story you see that you put because a gatekeeper is there to check the veracity. It doesn't mean that sometimes we don't goof. That's what we do. I would tell my guy, please apologize. Oh no. If you see any story, please, before you publish, before you broadcast, check from two or more sources before you go on air. Because it is better for you to keep your equity intact. You know, first time, some of us don't want to do breaking news. And in the process, we don't check properly. That is why some of us hope to team up that. But to me, as a professional, I would train the school to always share for the most important, I go ahead and read the story. You've been down to live out. But quickly, I'll come back to you. Let me come to Achike. I don't want to re-ask the question, but you know what I mean. In a case where the media is going above and beyond, because again, it seems like we're in between a rock and a hard place in terms of fighting terrorism in this country and the body language that the government is giving, et cetera, et cetera. We see a media house who's gone above and beyond to tell a story. They risk their life to bring this story. And then the government is saying, we're going to punish you for telling this story because we think that you're glamorizing terrorism. But these people are saying, we're trying to also find, make sense of why this war continues. Where do you start from in dealing with this? Because again, this is talking about controlling the media or arm-twisting the media. You know, the interest of the president of a country, sometimes it's not necessarily the interest of the people that he governs. The interest of a political party might not be synonymous with the interest of the people that the party, I mean, it's in charge of, in terms of if it's the dominant political party, the party in government. So sometimes there's always that tendency for them to want to protect the president, for them to want to protect the position of government and all that. But what I tell people really is that a president, for instance, is supposed to be the symbol of the nation. But there are times when the interest of state actors might be at variance with the interest of the country. So where do you draw the line at that particular point in time? Because just like you talked about, of course the government was very upset. But was the report actually glamorizing the terrorists or not? People have said that perhaps the story could have been done in another way. Perhaps they did not need to put the faces of the terrorist, I mean, in view of Nigerians to see and all that. But the government has said that they don't know these people. So giving a face to these people does it not help in any way? This is the issue for a government that is very serious because what those people have done, it was even surprising that the terrorists themselves agreed to show their faces. The normal thing is that they would have hidden their faces because of the fear of elimination by the government. But obviously what that program, the whole thing, the documentary, showed us is one, that these terrorists are in control and that they are not afraid of the government. They are not afraid of repercussions. But they were there confessing to brazen crimes against an Nigerian state without even thinking of caution. They need for them to hide their identity so that the government will not seek them out. Just a few days ago, or was it yesterday, we heard that, as a worry, the leader of Aikida had been taken out by the American government. That is what is suspected, that having exposed themselves in the way and manner they did, that they were walking on a thin line. Of course we know, and this is the hypocrisy, because there must be some level of consistency. Yes, Gumi and his supporters are not journalists, so perhaps there is a higher standard expected of journalists. But we have seen that exactly what the Daily Trust and the BBC did is what, for instance, Sheikh Gumi has been doing. He has been in the forest, in and out, with these terrorists, taking pictures, smiling with them, armed with guns, and nothing has happened. And so, perhaps the government felt uncomfortable because that documentary was going to lead people to ask questions that they have always been asking. And there are more things that we need to know about this government and the involvement of government officials with these terrorists that a lot of us do not know. Why has it become a problem? Why are the terrorists not afraid to show their faces? Because that would clearly make them out for elimination by a government that is serious to tackle terrorism. And then again, the reporters, the Daily Trust reporters and the BBC, with the terrorists, were they not also afraid? Or did they extract any promise by the Daily Trust reporters, for instance, that they are not going to devote the locations where they met them? Because these are the things that every security agency would be interested in. So if it was a serious government, what they would have done is to try to get some of the journalists that participated in that interview, in that program, to give them clues about where these terrorists are because they have always told us that most times that they don't know where they are. They don't know where they are operating at. But other people know. And again, another question that comes up is if these people with the level of knowledge they have, which is not as good as that of Nigeria's intelligence agencies, could actually, through whatever means, be able to locate these terrorists and engage them prior to having this documentary. Are you saying that our trained intelligence operatives do not have what it takes to infiltrate the ranks of these terrorists and all that? So I think that the government was being defensive in the condemnation of the journalists that took part in that program. But just like you also said, every such endeavor entails risks. These journalists took risks. They could have been eliminated by this people because these are people that do not have any moral scruples. These are people that have killed without provocation, innocent people. So for you now to go into the forest and also come out, you know, unscathed is simply, I mean, we must celebrate the bravery that some of these journalists showed. For me, that that is, you know, the right kind of journalism. But then again, people would argue that there are certain ethics, ethical boundaries that were broken. So it's subject to interpretation really. We do not have time, but we're going to continue having this conversation. But lastly, I want to ask you a question, Mr. Issa, before you go. How do we expect the media to grow, especially now that we're talking about the civic space, educating the civic space on what to do before, during and after the elections. And this, of course, includes who the person they should vote for should be. I mean, that's obviously going to be different. It would differ for me and for you. But then going to the, to where these terrorists were, to tell the story from a journalistic perspective, as opposed to all the stories that we've been hearing from our leaders, security agencies, this is a story from a journalist. And getting punished for it. How encouraging is that for us as journalists in this country? And going forward, why would anybody want to join this profession if we're being this guide or this punished at every opportunity in closing? Yeah. First of all, journalists do not create events. We only report events that have happened. Yes. In the Session 8 of the Code of Ethics for Journalists, developed by the NUJ, the Guild of Editors, and the Superproprietors, Session 8 says a journalist should not present or report acts of violence, armed robberies, terrorist activities, or vulgar display of wealth in a manner that glorifies soft arts in the eye of the public. I watched that BBC and TrostTV documentary. I didn't see any way to glamorize terrorism at all. In fact, they should be committed for doing that job. That is it. For people showing their faces, if the country had good records of all things, it should have used it to attract those guys. But of course, nothing else has happened. You know, so we will not be deterred. We are doing our job. Even in the Western countries, when the U.S. economy was alive, media houses interviewed. They used interviews. Going forward, I please my colleagues, I'll try to draw the answers. Please interrogate the issues. Ask all the candidates critical questions so that Najias will be better able to make informed choices. Thank you. I want to say thank you, Mr. Issa, for joining us. I want to say thank you. It's very important that we continue having But time is not on our side. We will be back to have this same kind of conversation. I am Mary Ann O'Connor. I'll see you tomorrow on Plus Politics as we talk for development. Have a good evening.