Tinubu and 2025 Nigerian Editors’ Forum: Matters arising

Last Wednesday marked a turning point in the interface between the government in Nigeria and the media, with President Bola Tinubu hosting this year’s Annual Conference of Nigerian Editors (the Nigerian Guild of Editors -NGE), tagged ANEC 2025. Hosted in the Conference Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the forum provided a welcome, direct interface […]

Last Wednesday marked a turning point in the interface between the government in Nigeria and the media, with President Bola Tinubu hosting this year’s Annual Conference of Nigerian Editors (the Nigerian Guild of Editors -NGE), tagged ANEC 2025.

Hosted in the Conference Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the forum provided a welcome, direct interface between the president and the crème la crème of the nation’s media establishment – being the editors; and hence. gatekeepers of the content of media channels and platforms.

As the first ever annual conference of Nigerian editors to be hosted by a sitting president, this year’s forum constituted a landmark dispensation for not just lifting the profile of this annual converge of the nation’s media top guns but also offers expectations of a turnaround in the fortunes of the nation’s media space. After all, what else would be expected from a handshake between the president of the country and the soul of the nation’s media establishment, but goodies beyond crumbs from the master’s table.  

And if he is to be taken by his words, President Bola Tinubu has offered a package of reliefs for the media industry, in line with the request by the NGE president, Eze Anaba, as contained in the latter’s address to the forum.

 In his response to Anaba’s request, the president offered to implement same – a development which should attract relief for the hard-pressed media establishments – many of which are operating on thread-bare conditions, while many others are on life support; yet, others had gone down completely.  Hence the president’s gesture should justify his hosting of the nation’s media leadership, just as it signposts the prospects of commendable dividends from closer collaboration between the government and the media space.  

Incidentally, it is for good measure that Tinubu charged the media on several areas as championing national unity, as well as upholding integrity and fairness in their enterprise. In the context of responsible journalism for which the mainstream of Nigeria’s media practice is widely acclaimed, these themes are more or less familiar turf to the seated media executives. But for their tenacious compliance with these tenets of their practice, the story of the media would have been different. However, it is just as well that he raised them to accentuate his congruence with the media on them, just as he can be sure that there will be a doubling down on these tenets in terms of compliance after the conference, given the media’s tradition of self-censorship, in the course of an eventual post-mortem on the hosting of the conference.

However, on the flip side of the foregoing is a concern over how far the circumstances of the dalliance between the president’s team and the media leadership will re-calibrate the course and tempo of the administration since such will remain a sore point for the country in the days and months ahead.

The moot point here is that having come so close to each other, the media will still go back to its calling of holding the government accountable to the citizens, who are looking forward to th recalibration of governance as its performance before the conference had reached a nadir in the reckoning of a wide cross section of Nigerians. This is also where expectations of the government to change its ways suddenly may not materialise soon, that is if such would ever come to pass.

Already, given the unmistakably all-knowing disposition of the administration with its obdurate tendency, as well as aversion towards robust media coverage of some of its shenanigans, not a few Nigerians – including interests in the nation’s media – had expressed reservations over the hosting of the editors’ parley in the Presidential Villa and by the president.

In this regard, the president needs to justify the opportunity of hosting the media by availing Nigerians of the evidence of a new dispensation in governance, even if it is only an indication of willingness to do so.   

In this respect, there are some scenarios the government needs to reconcile with. The first is that the presidency needs to identify with the utility of the media in supporting the oversight of its operational network, which comprises hundreds of agencies – each acting under its unique statutory mandate. But for the   media serving as the only watchdog over the network, the situation would have been different; hence it will pay the administration to enrich the capacity of the nation’s media for its own benefit.   In fact, it is to the credit of the eagle-eyed media, that the public and president came to be aware of certain bizarre developments in the administration like the instances of infiltration of the governance structure by questionable tendencies and interests. Hence any tendency by the government to undermine the media remains equivalent to the former shooting itself in the foot. 

Second is that the Nigerian media establishment is not one monolithic entity where all operators see things from one single perspective; and therefore, talk with one voice. Rather, the establishment rightly comprises hundreds of operators in each genre of media practice. For instance, according to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohamed Idris, with respect to the broadcast sector there are over 1,000 licensed radio and television stations in the country. With respect to the print media, they also number in their hundreds, while the online variants are as many as their operational profusion can allow.

What this situation of multiplicity in agencies of government and proliferation of media outfits calls for is more openness in governance, and due process in administration, with compliance with the provisions of the constitution, which every Nigerian is subscribing to as the beaten path to follow.

Beyond the foregoing is the fact that as the country builds up to the 2027 general polls, there is the growing tendency for seeking electoral advantages among politicians, and such, may attract critical appraisal by the media. It is hoped that the government would provide for the expectation of the media – a level-playing ground for all actors.