Afr. j . polit. sci. (2000) Vol. 5, No. 2,3 i -44 
The Transition and the Media 
Ayo Olukotun * 
Abstract 
This essay examines the role which the Nigerian mediaplayed in the transition from 
military rule to elected civilian government. It observes that the immediate political 
context of the transition was a post-Abacha liberalizing military administration as 
well as a resurgent civil society. This context meant that the media was able to play 
a relatively robust role in reporting and influencing the transition although the fact 
that the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime refused to repeal several "death decrees " 
targeted at the media remained a key constraining factor on the boldness and 
imaginativeness of the press in its reporting and monitoring of the transition. 
Furthermore, while the media, in all its plurality, offered coverage to all of the 
political parties, it was equally clear that the better financially-endowed People's 
Democratic Party (PDP) which also emerged as the dominant party was able to win 
greater advantage over the two other political parties, namely, the All People's 
Party and the Alliance for Democracy, through the purchase of advertisement 
space in the print and electronic media. On the whole, the Nigerian media played its 
role in the transition with credit and whatever weaknesses are observed in its 
performance and in the skewing of the outcomes of the transition owe more to the 
shallowness of the transition itself and less to the shortcomings of the media. 
Introduction and Overview 
Although radical and orthodox political scientists have long recognized the ccntrality 
of the media to governance and political change, they have paid surprisingly 
scant attention to studying the linkages between them. 
The current wave of democratization has reaffirmed the importance of the 
media, as a vital artery of civil society in delegitimizing autocracies, in fostering 
transition projects, as well as in consolidating and sustaining, infant democracies 
1027-0353 © 2000 African Association of Political Science
32 Ayo Olukotun 
(Olukotun & Omole, 1999). International Election monitoring, to take an instance, 
has very often zeroed in on the unequal access of competing parties to media 
coverage. For example, the Commonwealth Observer Group to the Presidential, 
Parliamentary and Civic Elections in Kenya in 1992, observed that; 
Even before the opening of the official campaign, opposition parties began 
to complain that they were being denied reasonable access to the media in 
general and to the publicly-owned radio and television in particular ... 
Indeed this became one of the most contentious issues during the campaign. 
(Reproduced in Media Rights Agenda/Carter Centre workshop publication, 
p. 25). 
As scholars like Jackobowicz (1995) have shown, the media in transitory 
politics are also in transition, and cannot be viewed as neutral references standing 
above society. Drawing on the experience of the Eastern European transitions, 
Jackobowicz posited that; 
The less democratic a state the more it is likely to perceive all the media as 
playing a political role and therefore requiring strict supervision. Such a 
state is prone to use administrative methods and possibly coercion 
(Jackobowicz, 1995:127). 
Given that authoritarian governments, military or civilian are more anxious to 
determine the representations of reality conveyed by the media, or at least skew 
them in their favour, it should surprise no one that the media are enlisted in the fray 
during election periods. 
The Nigerian transition took place under a liberalizing military regime, which 
acted as the umpire of the transition, and more or less determined the political and 
cultural space within which the media could report, the elections. Given that the 
transition itself eventually came about after several failed attempts, and as a result 
of pressures by the international community acting in tandem with a resurgent civil 
society, there was understandable care to present an acceptable face and come up 
with a passable outcome. Thus, the government put no overt pressures on the media 
prior to, during and after the various elections. 
Indeed, it relaxed the siege under which the media operated in the dark period of 
the Abacha days by freeing journalists detained by General Abacha. The situation, 
however, fell short of a level playing field in that General Abubakar "... enigmatically 
held on to those decrees under which a violent siege was laid on the media and 
free expression" (Olukotun, 1999a:3), although he did not enforce those decrees. 
It could be argued, therefore, that election reporting and coverage by media 
would have been bolder and more imaginative had Abubakar abrogated the "death 
decrees" on the statute books; as he was repeatedly urged to do. While the plural 
nature of the media, and their resilience deriving from several anti-dictatorship 
struggles, made it difficult for any group state or non-state to control them, in the end 
the mediaobeyed an economic logic by on the average giving more prominence and 
attention to the People's Democratic Party, (PDP) than the other two parties, the
The Transition and the Media 33 
Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People's Party (APP) which ran the 
presidential election on a single ticket. 
As we shall see, however, no simple conclusion can be drawn from that fact 
since bandwagon effect, bigger advertising-spending, better professional campaign 
methods and money politics, are all competing explanatory variables. 
Within its several constraints the media did a creditable job of informing the 
electorate, uncovering abuses, raising awareness, refining policy, and sustaining 
discourse on post-election democratic development. As is well known, however, 
the transition was a shallow one, witnessing several abuses and logistical hitches. 
As at July 2000, the democratic regime falls short of consolidation, and is 
assailed by centrifugal divisions, religious polarizations, communal violence and 
debilitating intra-governmental conflicts. It is more properly categorized, following 
(Diamond, et al, 1999:2) as "a low quality democracy" where the regime tends 
to "remain shallow, corrupt vulnerable to plebiscitarian styles of role, and incapable 
of guaranteeing basic civil liberties". 
The next section offers a contextual and historical backdrop, while a succeeding 
section discusses election reporting. We conclude by tying the issues together and 
looking at the future. 
The Media—Backdrop and Context 
In an election, the media, conceived here, broadly as print and electronic organs of 
mass communication play the role of providing information to the voters about 
candidates, the electoral process, actual voting dates, rules of the game, and much 
else. Concerning the candidates, for example, it is important for voters to know their 
qualifications, opinions, voting record, where they exist, and personality traits. 
Voters, in order to make a clear choice rely on the media for information the policies 
and manifestos of the respective parties. Finally, the media monitor elections by 
reporting their conduct (sometimes through live coverage on television), unearthing 
abuses and rigging, as well as by publishing results. In short, they are part of the 
apparatus for vetting and legitimizing elections. 
How the media perform the roles enumerated above, is obviously a function of 
their antecedents and culture; the regulatory environment (legal, political and 
economic) in which they operate, as well as traditions and standards of journalism 
in the country. 
Nigeria has the biggest and most virile press community in Africa followed by 
South Africa and Kenya (Park, 1993:1). One source put the number of publications 
(weeklies, dailies and magazines) at 116 (Ogbodu, 1986:81), although a number of 
these are fickle and are at the margins of survival. Indeed, one consequence of the 
economic downturn of the 1980s and 1990s and specifically a consequence of 
hostile authoritarian economic policies towards the press, is that as at 1999, the 
combined circulation of all newspapers do not reach half a million, in a country of 
100 million or so citizens. If we add the circulation figures of the magazines and 
other publications, to those of newspapers, they barely hit the one million mark.
34 Ayo Olukotun 
The Punch, a privately-owned newspaper is perhaps the most widely-read 
newspaper and its print run is between 60,000 and 80,000 copies per day. The 
Guardian, a favourite of the intellectuals and respected for its independent, sober 
views, had a print-run in 1999 of between 50,000 and 70,000 copies per day. Other 
newspapers such as the privately-owned National Concord, This Day, Post Express, 
The Vanguard, as well as the state-owned Daily Times, and the New Nigerian, 
do less well in circulation terms than The Punch and The Guardian. The magazine 
market is dominated by three giants, namely, Tell Magazine, The News and 
Newswatch, and have circulation figures of about 100,000, 80,000 and 50,000, 
respectively. 
One under-reported, but increasingly assertive newspaper genre are the vernacular 
newspapers, which in the Yoruba-speaking region made a rebound in the 
closing years of military rule. A rash of vernacular newspapers have sprung up in 
recent years, trying to build on the success of Alaroye whose circulation competes 
favourably with the most successful national dailies (see Olutokun, 1999b; Dare, 
1999). In broadcasting, there are close to 45 television stations, with about 10 of 
these in private hands, while of the 44 or so radio stations, a handful are privately 
owned following the deregulation of broadcasting by the state in 1994 (Bankole, 
1995; Olukotun, 1996). The most successful private electronic media are AIT and 
MINAJ televisions as well as RayPower Radio, all of which offer refreshing 
contrasts to the heavily state-controlled contents of state electronic media. (Olukotun, 
1997a, 1997b). 
As in Kenya, publications rise, fall and are sometimes reborn with dizzying 
regularity. This is particularly true of the genres of afternoon newspapers, soft-sell 
magazines as well as newspapers owned by sub-national authorities. Take The Diet 
newspaper, for example. It was founded in 1997 by Mr James Ibori, a close ally of 
the late dictator, General Sani Abacha. In 1999, most of its staff had walked out as 
a result of the non-payment of salaries for several months—a typical syndrome in 
Nigerian press culture. The paper virtually grinded to a halt in late 1999. In 2000, its 
publisher, now Governor of Delta State, relaunched The Diet as an attractive, 
technicolour publication. 
The imposition of value added tax on inputs into newspaper production by both 
the Abacha and Abubakar administrations, and the consequent skyrocketing costs 
of production, forced many newspapers to downsize, cut back on circulation, 
increase cover price or simply capsize. The years, between 1994 and 1999 were 
harsh ones for the press, not just because of censorship decrees and frequent 
detention, but because of hostile economic policies. The imposition of 5 per cent 
Value Added Tax on newspapers in the 1999 budget by General Abubakar, 
stiffened further the climate in which many newspapers found themselves. Increases 
in cover price and advert rates by The Guardian and other publications in 
1999 made the press even more of an elitist product than it ought to have been in an 
election year. 
Feeble capacity of media meant that reporters lacked, often the necessary
The Transition and the Media 35 
infrastructure and ancillary materials to do an in-depth coverage of the election and 
resort to dubious survival strategies. For doing a live coverage of the PDP President 
election primaries, held in Jos, the African Independent Television (AIT), a 
medium on the edge of bankruptcy, presented a bill running into several thousands 
of Naira to the party. 
As at election year, various newspapers state-owned and private were owing 
their staff several month of salary, ranging from 3 months to 8 months, as a result of 
the distress in that sector of the economy. One senior journalist observed correctly 
that the Nigerian journalist "goes out to work armed minimally despite today's 
electronic age. Side by side with his foreign counterpart he is equipped like a stoneage 
communicator amidst the clusters of sophisticated gadgetry presided over by 
his Japanese equivalent. Under these conditions, the Nigerian journalist is an 
unsung hero ... deplorable low wages and delayed salary payments are common" 
(cited in Daily Times, 9 June 1994, p. 20). 
Most journalists are not computer literate, much less own personal computers, 
in spite of the arrival on the Internet of The Post Express, The Guardian and The 
Vanguard. In an age in which "electronic networks connect data bases and video 
cameras around the world" (Cairncross, 1997:237); one survey informs pertinently 
that;
A visit to The Guardian newsroom does little credit to its place and influence 
in journalism. Besides being a long clutter of tables and chairs, reporters still 
go through long-hand production. Very little information technology presence 
is felt here {Media Review, March/April 2000, p. 23). 
As mentioned earlier, all the anti-media decrees promulgated by Generals 
Babangida and Abacha were on the statute books as at the time of the Nigerian 
election. These include, for examples; Offensive Publications (Proscription) Decree 
No. 35 of 1993; State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree No. 2 of 1984, 
under which, for instance, journalists can be detained and held incommunicado for 
security reasons; The Treason and Other Offences (Special Military Tribunal) 
Decree No. 1 of 1996; as well as The Constitution (Suspension and Modification) 
Decree No. 107 of 1993, which annuls a citizen's right to public apology or 
compensation, if he was unjustly or unlawfully detained {see Media Rights Agenda 
1998 report; Olukotun and Osuntokun, 1999; Olukotun, 2000A). 
General Abubakar, as pointed out did not enforce these decrees, unlike his 
predecessors Generals Abacha and Babangida; they nonetheless hovered like a 
sword of Damocles over journalists and other civil society groups throughout the 
transition. Furthermore, occasional skirmishes such as the seizure in February 
1999, the month of the presidential elections of the News Magazine edition of 8 
February, apparently due to police over-zealousness, suggests that the atmosphere 
was less liberal than it could have been for media work. Although the media are well 
known for their combative tenor and disposition and for surviving several dictatorships 
from the colonial times, it is clear that the military still determined the 
boundaries of free expression as at the time of the election and beyond it.
36 Ayo Olukotun 
Another feature of the media worth noting is their overwhelming concentration 
in the South-west area due to historical and economic reasons. This itself has 
spawned a debate on media and federalism amidst allegations of a "media 
monopoly" by a section of the country {see Olukotun, 1999C, 2000B & 2000C). 
Two influential media genres active in Nigeria are the international press and the 
emergent telematics sector; as well as the alternative press consisting of indigenous 
artists, orature and social criticism (Olukotun, 2000D) BBC, VOA and CNN are 
quite popular, in view of an esteemed higher credibility rating. They, in fact, 
increasingly shape the content of Nigerian media (Olukotun, 1996; Owens-Ibe, 
1997). There is also a tiny but growing telematics sector featuring E-mails, Internet 
messages and the whole province of new information technology in which the 
country remains peripheral. The 1999 presidential election at a stage moved to the 
Internet as presidential aspirants opened up web sites to send and to receive 
messages. 
Content/Coverage 
For analytical convenience, it might be worthwhile to divide media coverage of the 
transition into two phases: The period up till the 5 December local government 
elections; and the period after it. The first period was taken up mainly with 
foundational activities such as the setting up of the Electoral Commission; Registration 
of Voters and the production of a voters' register; Formation of political 
associations whose graduation into parties was made contingent upon their performance 
in the local government elections; the revision of the 1995 Draft 
Constitution midwifed by a committee set up by government and other activities. In 
the second phase, we had the governorship and state assembly elections of 9 January 
1999; the National Assembly Elections held mid-February, the presidential elections 
of 27 February and its aftermath. 
First of all, let it be said that all aspects of the transition were extensively covered 
and intensely reported on by the media. Nigerian media culture is overwhelmingly 
political in its reportage and emphasis, often at the expense of other beats such as 
environment, human rights, gender issues, business and other aspects of life. In a 
campaign and transition season, newspapers and electronic media attempt to outdo 
one another in offering the readers up to date information and even exclusive stories 
as part of gaining a market advantage or at least preserving their market share, in a 
keenly competitive milieu. Readers are offered, however, a somewhat predictable 
fare of straight political reporting, day after day by ten or more newspapers, relying 
on broadly the same sources for their information. Analysis and commentaries are 
made, too, but there is little in-depth analysis, investigative feature stories and 
candidate scrutiny such as might have made the papers and broadcasting media 
more imaginative and more focused. 
There is, in sum, a predominance of the tabloid culture of direct, salient 
reporting offering little in the way of analysis, qualitative feature stories, 
backgrounders and research-based monitoring and prediction of trends. As a
The Transition and the Media 37 
chronicle, the reach of the media is constrained not just by low circulation and an 
overwhelming urban concentration, but also by, as noted earlier, media geography, 
arising from their preponderance in the Lagos-Ibadan axis. The derisive epithet 
"Ngbati Press" has been coined as a censorious description of an allegedly Yorubadominated 
media. It is not that there are no newspapers located in other parts of the 
country; it is that they have been distinctly less successful, in view of a less 
developed reading culture, and their failure to insert into the advertising and 
commercial opportunities offered by the big industrial coastal cities of the Southwest 
where most publications derive close to 80 per cent of their sales and 
advertising revenue. With the growing commercial importance of Abuja, it is 
possible that there might be a shift in that trend in the foreseeable future (Olukotun, 
2000 C/D). 
A. Between July and December 1999 
After some initial dithering and public debate, General Abdulsalami Abubakar 
announced on 20 July 1998 that, "After all necessary consultations government has 
decided that the election of a civilian president will be held in the first quarter of 
1999. The newly-elected president will be sworn into office on 29 May 1999" (cited 
in Oseni, 199:7). The populace suffering from transition fatigue moved in slowly 
and warily to embrace Abubakar's programme. The apprehension and initial 
scepticism, which lasted well into December, was fully captured in the media. Ray 
Ekpu, publisher of Newswatch and a long-standing columnist wrote that 
29 May 1999 is the 7th disengagement date that various governments have fixed 
since 1985. None has so far been fulfilled. We must hope that the 7th will be 
Nigeria's lucky number (cited in Liberty, Sep.-Dec. 1998, p. 25). 
Similarly in his "A Few Prescriptions for Transition Fatigue", this researcher 
counselled that: 
The military must distance itself, this time around, from a well-heeled tribe of 
political contractors, temporarily unemployed, whose lucrative business it had been 
to "persuade" serving military heads of state to "accept" or contrive a further tenure, 
beyond the terminus of the transition programme" {Sunday Times Column, July 
1999). 
More to the point, a senior journalist, Mr Tunji Oseni, organized a national 
seminar in August 1998 on the media and the transition, with the declared aim of 
getting journalists to reflect on the new transition programmer, in the light of the 
nation's tortuous experience of previous transitions, and to set an agenda for 
journalistic coverage. Oseni himself set the ball rolling by listing the responsibilities 
of the media in a transition as: keeping the administration to its word of promise; 
being strong in the face of danger; offering where necessary, alternatives to the 
transition agenda; serving as a feedback on government policies as well as 
expanding the scope of the transition to areas such as morality, accountability, 
management of national economy and the amelioration of poverty (Oseni, 1999:16). 
Within the constraints literated earlier, there is evidence that a section of the
38 .4 w Olukotun 
media at least, tried its best to play the role of transition watchdog suggested by 
Oseni. For example, Tell Magazine did week after week a countdown to the handover 
in every single issue it published between July 1998 and the hand-over of 
power in May 1999. It reads in its 7 November edition (p. 7) "31 more weeks for 
Abubakar to hand-over lo an elected civilian president"—in bold letters and boxed. 
This was a kind of advocacy advertising for the transition programme and the 
elections. 
At the conference on media and transition, Charles Obi, who had just been 
released from a three-year detention on framed-up charges of aiding the planners of 
the phantom coup of 1995, suggested that "Journalists must play their watchdog 
role even more effectively by monitoring and investigating aspirants to public office 
to enable the electorate to make reasonable decisions". Obviously, Nigerian 
journalists, no stranger to democratic transitions, and having been traumatized by 
successive dictators who clung to power through governance by transition were in 
no mood to brook another dummy transition project. Still on the perceptions of the 
journalists, Ray Ekpu had said at another forum that he hoped that: 
The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigerian Press Council 
(NPC), the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigerian 
Press Organization can work out a way for the equitable treatment of all 
political parties and candidates by the print and electronic media, government 
owned and private. That way the level of partisanship in the media can 
be curtailed and the dramatis personae in the political drama can have 
something close to a level playing field. South Africa did it, why can't we? 
(Liberty, Scp.-Dec. 1998, Vol. 9, p. 25). 
Ekpu here was showing awareness of the linkage between the differential access 
of parties and candidates to media and the outcome of elections. Even in a more 
mature democracy like Britain, the role of the tabloid press in the 1992 General 
Election, became a subject of scholarly and popular interest. Guidelines were issued 
on fair coverage in the Nigerian transition by the Broadcasting Commission, the 
Press Council and other bodies, but there is no evidence that they were enforced or 
that erring newspapers or television stations were sanctioned. However, as pointed 
out earlier, except for a few excesses and partisanship here and there, there is no 
evidence to suggest that any medium actively denied any candidate or political 
group access to its medium. As we shall see however, that is not the same thing as 
saying that no party enjoyed better coverage, on account of, for instance, higher 
campaign spending. That the PDP had much more money to play around with had 
already been evident in the controversy over General Obasanjo's donation of 130 
million Naira to the party for the 5 December council election (see The Tribune, 24 
November, p. 8). Various newspapers criticized the donation and attempted to hold 
Obasanjo down to a cogent explanation and "a full disclosure of the identities of 
those involved in [in aiding him]... to help members of the public in establishing the 
real character and motives of the contributors—in the final analysis, however, the 
authorities must seriously consider setting a ceiling on the amount on individual
The Transition and the Media 39 
aspirant could spend in the course of seeking public office" (Tribune Editorial, 24 
November 1998, p. 8). 
That this donation and other ones by financially endowed members of the PDP 
translated into enhanced media coverage can be easily demonstrated. Between 1 
December and 5 December (just before the council elections), the PDP placed 18 
full-page adverts; the APP and the AD placed 3 in 6 privately-owned newspapers 
(Maja-Pearce, 1999:86). 
Any student of media sociology knows that advertisers exert subtle and unsubtle 
pressures on content—a fact more obviously so in a depressed newspaper industry. 
The linkage between advert-spending and news coverage is borne out by the fact 
that in This Day, a privately-owned newspaper, and one of the six which enjoyed 
PDP's advert-spending, for the month of December 1999 there were 90 stories on 
PDP; 51 on APP; and 48 on AD. Similarly in The Guardian, also one of the six 
papers referred to earlier, there were, for December 1999,56 stories on PDP, 39 on 
APP and 44 on AD (MRA scorecard, January 1999). Of course, higher advertspending 
is not the only variable for explaining better visibility but it is certainly a 
conducive factor. 
When we turn to broadcasting we find that some programmes such as Political 
Diary on MINAJ, a privately-owned television station was sustained by commercial 
spending, and therefore open to politicians who had money to spend. 
Unsurprisingly, PDP chieftains such as Chief James Ibori and Dr Alex Ekwueme 
featured prominently in the month of December, especially in the week before the 
council polls. This fact is partly compensated for by the fact that MINAJ also had 
other programmes such as Election Watch, which was made open equally to all 
candidates (MRA Airwaves Scorecard, January 1999, p. 20). In general, if we 
isolate the influence of commercial spending, the media coverage was, on balance, 
even-handed. 
The media both print and electronic paid meticulous attention to the role of 
INEC, the electoral regime and the content of the transition. In this, it kept the 
authorities on their toes and prevented the programme from derailing or tolerating 
gross abuses that could delegitimize the entire exercise. This remark should be 
taken, in the context of the fact that Nigerians were eager to get rid of the military, 
while the military itself having exhausted its political bag of tricks was eager to 
leave office. Consequently, some irregularities in the voting process and in the 
electoral regime were overlooked or not strongly protested about. 
INEC—its independence and impartiality was a critical test of the elections and 
the media devoted considerable space to discussing the institution and making 
suggestions. For example, The Guardian editorial comment of 19 August 1999 (p. 
16) suggested that INEC should put in place measures to avert the spectre of rigging. 
It also admonished it to distanceitself from manipulation by security agencies, state 
administrators and bureaucrats. Also, taking up the issue of "The Flawed Voters' 
Registration" in its editorial comment of 26 October 1998 (p. 8). 
The Punch lamented the hitches in the exercise and urged that INEC fine-tune its
40 Ayo Olukotun 
logistic to cope with the demands of running hitch-free elections. Similarly, The 
Tribune comment of 30 November 1998 (p. 8) welcomed the relaxation of some of 
the stiff guidelines put in place by INEC for the 5 December elections. 
There was, therefore, an intimate dialogue between the media, often conveying 
"public opinion", and the electoral authorities, with the result that the system 
profited and avoided reckless excesses. Of the 21 editorial comments published by 
The Guardian in the month of November 1999,5 of them dealt with the transition 
programme and dealt with such matters as the 1995 constitution; the new political 
parties; INEC guidelines for the December council polls and related subjects. A 
similar trend is noticeable in all other papers. And this brings us to the second phase 
of the transition, covering the period from January onwards. 
B. The Period from January 1999 Onwards 
Most of the trends identified earlier—the higher comparatively visibility of PDP in 
the media; overall balanced coverage of contestants leaving aside occasional 
partisanship and the influence of money; keen media monitoring of polling and 
electoral regime and so on—continued right till the end of the transition. For 
example, on the eve of the governorship/state assembly elections, between 5 
January and 9 January in the six privately-owned newspapers identified earlier, the 
AD had 3 full-page adverts; the APP 9 while the PDP had 18 (Maja-Pearce, 
1999:92). At this time, however, a bandwagon effect was already operating with 
PDP being increasingly viewed as the big party. 
The media gave full coverage to the instances of abuses in the governorship/ 
state assembly as well as the presidential elections. For example, in its report of 25 
January 1999 (p. 27) Newswatch reported the findings of the Transition Monitoring 
Group—a non-governmental coalition of 56 human and civil rights groups about 
malpractices in the governorship/state assembly elections. These included underage 
voters in Katsina, multiple voting in Abia State as well as stories of bribery in 
Delta and Ekiti states. The report was extensively covered in newspapers and 
broadcasting stations. 
The media weight of PDP is shown in the fact that the New Nigerian in the month 
of January carried 51 stories on PDP; 12 on AD; and 18 on PDP while the privatelyowned 
Punch had 81 stories on PDP; 47 on AD and 34 on APP (MRA Scorecard, 
February 1999). 
As is usual in Nigerian politics, however, most of the excitement, competition 
and spending power were reserved for the presidential elections. As late as 7 
February 1999, an article in The Guardian described the campaign as relatively 
tame with candidates relying more on posters and newspapers rather than television 
and outdoor campaigns. Indeed, the article said correctly that one can easily count 
the number of TV adverts on one's fingertips. Most candidates could not afford 
professional marketing services, thus leaving the field to the big spenders. 
Ray Ekpu in his write-up of 8 February (p. 6) captured the mounting excitement 
of the presidential primaries and campaign when he said that "all the elections
The Transition and the Media 41 
conducted so far fall, in a manner of speaking, into the minor league". Also in the 
same period of the presidential primaries two politicians, General Obasanjo and 
Chief Alex Ekwueme moved their campaigns to the Internet, opening a new page in 
Nigeria's electoral history (Guardian, 2 February 1999, p. 1). 
The virulence and ethnic mobilization of the presidential primaries was captured 
and denounced by The Guardian in its editorial of 11 February. Entitled 
"Presidential Campaign Trivia", it lamented the exchange of diatribe and destructive 
lampooning instead of attention to issues such as the economy, the energy 
crisis, the liquidated federal system and the Nigeria Delta cauldron. Warned the 
paper; "An Electoral process that is not guided by solid ideas and progressive 
thinking can only produce incompetent and opportunistic leaders". One year after 
the transition to democracy, one can see the result of not heeding the agenda set by 
the newspaper. 
Newspapers such as The Guardian have on their editorial board intellectuals 
and academics—often a remedial virtue in the somewhat Philistinic climate of 
Nigerian journalism. Following the emergence of Obasanjo and Olu Falae as 
presidential flagbearers of the PDP and the AD/APP alliance respectively, The 
Guardian editorialized pertinently that "Little Secret is made of the fact that behind 
Obasanjo's emergence is a formidable corps of retired, ... but ambitious and 
financially endowed military officers ... The nuances of the run-up to the Fourth 
Republic would, therefore, seem to suggest that the military and paramilitary class 
is creating a leverage for itself. In the future, it remains the challenge of civil society 
to reclaim its primacy of political authority". On 3 February 1999, The New 
Nigerian editorialized on "The Last Set of Elections", namely, the federal legislative 
and presidential, which it described as a "big test to INEC". 
The month of February expectedly witnessed intense political commentary and 
coverage by the media on the elections of 20 February and 27 February. It also 
involved an unprecedented clutch of foreign reporters, observers and election 
monitors in the country. It was thus possible for Nigerians and the world to have full 
information on virtually every aspect of the election. 
The irregularities reported by the Carter group and other observers in the 
presidential elections were well reported in the media. However, confronted with a 
choice between cancelling the election and grudgingly accepting its flawed outcome, 
most newspapers editorialized on a grudging acceptance—warts and all. 
ThePunch counselled editorially on lOMarch 1999, in a typical comment that; 
Unless the AD/APP alliance has overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence 
that the results as declared did not reflect the preference of Nigerians, 
they should be contented with documenting the atrocities of the election, 
making them public and sending copies to the Head of State, the PDP and 
General Obasanjo. 
The cynicism of the international media on the more sordid aspects of the 
election, especially the influence of money was reflected in a comment in The 
Economist of late February 1999 entitled "In Nigeria, Who Pays Wins".
42 Ayo Olukotun 
Conclusion: Looking Ahead 
As we have seen in previous sections, the media, drawing on their experience of 
reporting transitions (real or pretended) gave a passable account of themselves in 
covering the Abubakar transition. There were lapses here and there: The partisanship 
of The Champion whose publisher, Chief Iwuanyanwu, is an APP stalwart; 
unethical lapses as in unbalanced stories and pictures in some of the newspapers and 
so on. Nonetheless, as earlier broached the pluralism of the media; the traditions of 
professionalism in a broad section of the media; the guidelines issued by bodies 
such as the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, all served to keep the media on 
course. In some of the quality papers, attempts were made to set agenda for the 
incoming civilian government, as well as for civil society. 
We have seen, however, that one of the parties, the PDP received consistently 
better coverage than the other two parties. This as argued earlier partly relates to 
higher advertising-spending by the PDP which harbours a plethora of well-heeled 
individuals. It relates, too, to the professionalization of its campaign efforts and the 
use of better marketing strategies. The Obasanjo presidential campaign had a fullfledged 
media department at a well appointed building in Ikeja and was manned by 
a professional corps of public relations experts and former senior journalists. It was 
directed by Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, a former editor of the Daily Times, ably 
assisted by the managing director of The Week Magazine. By contrast, one of the 
early adverts placed by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) was paid for by a 
senatorial aspirant because according to him "there was no money in the kitty to pay 
for adverts" (interview). 
Even if we discount such things as the brown envelope syndrome (bribe-taking 
to kill or publish stories), it is clear that the unequal commercial strength of the 
parties is an explanation for differential media exposure. 
The media continue to play an active role in Nigeria's infant democracy. They 
have through exposure of abuses, forced the resignation of the Speaker of the House 
of Representatives, Alhaji SalisuBuhari, and the President of Senate, Chief Evans 
Enwerem. They created a crisis of legitimacy for the Lagos State Governor, Chief 
Bola Tinubu, which he narrowly weathered, over allegations that he had riddled 
with his bio-data. 
The power of the media in the polity goes beyond what their capacity and reach 
would have predicted. However, this power is celebrated by democratic activists 
and resented by others who criticize the media for selective justice—thus reopenin<* 
the debate on the extent to which the media respond to ethnic, partisan and 
ownership drives, and the extent to which it caters to a trans-ethnic civic constituency. 
Building media capacity, extending circulation, hooking to up to date information 
technology, encouraging the vernacular press are issues that need to be taken on 
board given the growing disparity between Africa and the industrialized countries 
of the North who are increasingly worried about information overload (Bereer 
1998, Franklin & Love, 1998, Tedjabosu, 1998). Such concerns may also make the
The Transition and the Media 43 
media more alert to issues of mass poverty which throws up a legitimacy problem 
for Nigeria's still tender democracy (See Olukoshi in this edition). 
Note 
* Ayo Olukotun is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Lagos State 
University, Lagos, Nigeria. He was formerly Editorial Page Editor at The Daily Times. 
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