The media in any political set-up, Nigeria and world at large, is perceived as the custodian of people’s power. It is an independent political institution that serves as a channel of information for the political education of the electorate. However, the role of media has gone beyond informing, educating and entertaining, but also performing the role of creation and maintenance of public opinion. Indeed, public opinion in any democratic system of governance is an essential instrument and people will form their opinion based on the importance attached to an issue by the media. That is to say the more importance media attached to an issue, the more it influence or even change people’s opinion, attitude, action and belief. For instance, the massive turn out by the electorate during 2019 voter’s registration exercise and general election was attributed to the importance attached to the exercise by the media.
However, now that the 2023 general election is by the corner, various stakeholders particularly the electorate are strategizing to elect credible leaders in various level of governance for another four years mandate. The media should ex-ray the achievement of the present leaders by embarking on aggressive follow up on their campaign promises which they pronounced to the electorate during the last election, to ascertain if all these promised were fulfil or not. These media effort will avail the electorate with the open minded and assessment opinion to know which candidate or party to be voted for.
Moreso, the media operators should make a systematic shift by way of embarking on developmental journalism. Thank God! That the freedom of information bill which had appear, disappear, and appear in different fashion in the national assembly session since it’s first inauguration in 1999 had been passed, this will serves as an addendum for media operators to be free as the air to comment, source and disseminate information without fear of intimidation or harassment. It also guarantees freedom of expression to the electorate.
Pitifully over the years, Nigerian media have been bedevilled with excessively focusing on negative stories such as: Bomb blast, Corruption, Kidnapping, Crises, Crime, banditry, ritual and soon, hence, given less attention to developmental issues. This is a dangerous trend to our nascent democracy. The consequence of this mentality if not cheek will not only dent the image of our great country, but also the credibility attached to media by the audience will gradually fade out, as people will no longer perceive media as an instrument of fighting public course.
Therefore, for the media to play a reasonable role in sustaining and development of the political, social and economic development of Nigeria there is the need for the media to give more prominence to developmental issues. China, for instance, have successfully used their press in entrenching and sustaining communism and campaign for cultural revolution. Today, China is rated as one of the most industrialized nation in the world.
Honestly, the media in democratic system of governance, should be seen as an ally in nation building and construction through reporting developmental issues from people to the government and from government to the people. It is worthy to mention that the sustainability and development of our young democracy rested heavily on the vibrancy and objectivity of the media.