Eddie Iroh is the former Director General of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). In this interview with IBRAHIM RAMALAN, the seasoned journalist and writer lets loose his musings on the state of the media in the country in relation to what obtained in the past, believing that the proliferation of newspaper outlets in the country is bad omen because the reading culture of Nigerians is poor
The height of your career as a journalist could be said to be in print media. Judging the newspapers of today, especially as more and more Newspapers are still evolving, do you see it as a good omen for the development of journalism and the country at large?
I am not sure if it is print, because before The Guardian newspaper where I was the first Managing Editor, I had been one of the team that set up the Nigerian Television Authority [NTA] where i rose to be a Controller. And then of course came the opportunity of Radio Nigeria in 1999 as the Director General of Africa’s largest radio network. So i would say that the electronic media gave me the most opportunity to prove myself. But back to print media, let me first ask you: what is the reason for existence of Blueprint Newspaper as yet another newspaper in Nigeria? What is it that is different from other papers? What is the niche that the publisher saw in the Nigerian market that motivated him to set it up? I know there is a saying that the more, the merrier. But that doesn’t always work in the Nigeria newspaper industry. For a long time Nigeria has been over populated with newspapers and this has brought in its wake a lot of dangers. One of the dangers is that it breeds corruption. People will cut corners to stay ahead of the competition, to do unorthodox things to get attention. – sensational things. That is why some engage in blackmail, and this is totally against the free enterprise of objective journalism in a democracy.
Also, quite unfortunately, Nigeria is not a reading public. Anybody who doesn’t agree should prove me wrong. You see a lot of people gather round a news stand reading free newspapers, some pay as little as N50 to take a peep into the paper and then move on. Thus we remain uninformed, illiterate. I mean it is so primitive seeing people reading newspapers ion this fashion in the 21st century. A country of 160 million people, and there is no newspaper that sells up to two hundred and fifty thousand copies a day; I know that for a fact. The rest of the papers remain unsold as people read and move on. I was coming back from the airport just yesterday and I saw piles of several dozens unsold newspapers around 5 to 6 o’clock in the afternoon, which means that it is too late to sell that lot. So to set up more newspapers raises more and more questions in my mind because of the dangers I have earlier mentioned.Any new newspaper has to have something special and unique to offer the reading public.
Another draw back for the proliferation of newspapers is that some houses are unable to to pay the wages of staff. For those who could not pay their staff, the staff have to find a way to survive which often involves unethical means that undermine the entire enterprise. I know those who say ‘oh my newspaper business card is your meal ticket. Go and use it.” When you say that you should know that you are letting loose hyenas into the public space because people will use it to butter their bread, or do whatever thing they find convenient, and the values and the ethics of the profession are compromised.
However, even with the advent the social media, newspaper is still an invaluable source of information and there is not going to be a day when somebody will say ‘yes we can do without newspapers.’ So we are losing out by simply creating more and more newspapers and not creating a reading culture and enthroning values and ethics that will preserve the institution.
How could this be checked?
Mergers, acquisitions are the way out because if you look at today’s papers, they are basically saying the same things, except for a change here and there. But then everybody wants to be a publisher, everybody who is successful as a columnist or as an editor wants to set up his newspaper so as to be called Publisher and CEO. Nobody wants to submit or be subservient to another. The most interesting thing is that those people who set up newspaper business in he Western world are very often not journalists, as is the case in Nigeria. They are largely businessmen, entrepreneurs. And then tend to be very successful. Maybe we should mind our businesses and face what we do well fairly and squarely. I have seen many great journalists in the in UK and US who remained as editors or columnists until they retire. As a young man, I met a guy called Alfred Friendly of the New York Times. Alfred was in his late 60s when they made him an Associate Managing Editor. He told his company, ‘ thank you but please allow me to continue reporting because that is what I enjoy.’ Alfred refused to go and sit behind a desk. And I give my own example: When I was at The Guardian as the Managing Editor, after a while i no longer enjoyed my work. I craved to return to mainstream reporting. But I knew as a Managing Editor, if i returned to reporting in Nigeria everybody would see it as a demotion. So I began to work towards being posted out of the country. I ended up in London as the Regional Editor for Europe and North America and I had some of the greatest time of my life as a journalist. I covered the UN in New York and Geneva, UNESCO in Paris and this was at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. I also had a string of reporters reporting to me as the regional editor. And I didn’t lose any prestige because I was in a culture that respect whatever you are doing and enjoying.
Recently, the security service chiefs had held a conference with mostly all Nigerian media editors urging them to stop giving prominence to reports on insurgency. Don’t you see that as an editorial interference?
No, not exactly. Moments of national crisis call for different ethos. We as media men and women cannot remove ourselves from the challenges that face our nation. We cannot just report them and stand apart from their consequences. In the United Kingdom [I know Nigerians don’t often like comparisons with and references to UK, US etc but that is where I live and they are the societies I understand and know well, probably because they are societies that are easy to understand]. In the UK there is what is called the ‘D-Notice’. It is applied in times of war. I think it started during the First or Second World War. When the D-Notice is applied. It means that the liberty of a journalist and that of the profession is suspended in the national and in he interest of public safety and security. When D-Notices are applied, it is the equivalent of voluntary censorship. In this regard these service chiefs are right.
You know, one of the objectives of this insurgency is shock and awe. That is why they behead people and post it on the internet. That is why they shoot people from behind and make sure that the world, including children, see it. Their intent is to shock you. It suits their deranged ego. Therefore we must not assist them. Again in the United Kingdom, at the height of insurgency of Irish Republican Army (IRA), the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed a law that banned the broadcast of the voices of the IRA leadership and spokesmen and women. Thatcher said at the time that the IRA should be denied the oxygen publicity, because publicity is oxygen that insurgents thrive on. Therefore we should similarly deny them that oxygen. We should squeeze the life out of their acts of terror through lack of publicity. But at the same time, we must draw the line not to deny people the kind of information that would enhance public safety and security. There is a responsibility for us as the Fourth Estate, which has a constitutional responsibility, to provide information that enhances public safety and security without giving the terrorists reasons to jubilate. So that extent our military chiefs were right to seek the cooperation of the media. Terrorists do read newspapers and listen to radio. I don’t often agree with our military leaders but this time I do.
What is your overview of the media in Nigeria?
I am going to deliver a paper sometime in January about the press, politics and power. They are intertwined, especially in Nigeria. I once delivered a paper at the Nigerian War College in which I said that the media played a greater role in liberating Nigeria during colonial rule, than the military. We the media fought the British colonialists to a standstill. Some of us lost their lives. In confronting colonial rule, we were ahead of the military. When we look at it from the historical context, the Azikwes, Herbert Macaulay and the Awolowos and of course Anthony Enahoro the man who moved the motion for independence, they were all journalists who fought colonial rule. Many of them went to prison. In fact the colonial masters even got tired of jailing Tony Enahoro because he was irrepressible. So you can see what the media had been doing right from the colonial times. The military, on the other hand, were tools of colonial repression. As the Queen’s Own Nigerian Regiment, as the Army was then called, and before then the Royal West African Frontier Force, the military was an adjunct of colonial oppression. They were used to brutally quell anti colonial riots across the nation.
However, when we got independence, it was the politicians who screwed it all up. And with the advent of military rule, the media were forced back into the trenches. We didn’t win one freedom to lose it to another band of oppressors. You know, in a fair society, some people who are seen prancing around today in Nigeria are supposed be held to account for what they did to the media, the press in particular. Buhari wants to rule Nigeria but what he did to the media as a military ruler then cannot be swept under the carpet; the memories are still fresh. I was standing in court representing The Guardian Newspaper when Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor were jailed under Decree 4. If The Guardian Newspaper were a human being, I, Eddie Iroh, would have been in jail on behalf of the company. Decree 4 did not criminalize falsehood or libelous publication for which there is an extant law. Rather it criminalized truthful reporting. They criminalized accurate reporting. It didn’t matter whether how true; so long as what you wrote lowers my esteem, you can go to jail. But we live in an unjust nation. Nigeria is an unjust country. In societies where justice and rule of law prevail, people are held to account. In countries like South Korea where the military ruled and later democracy reigns, these perpetrators would be held to account. But here in Nigeria we all sweep everything under the carpet. Alfred Diette Spiff who as military governor of the old Rivers State humiliated a journalist Minere Amakiri, stripped him and had his head shaved for writing what the governor did not like, was never called to other by his boss at the time, General Gowon. And today Spiff is Chairman of the Council of Chiefs in Bayelsa State!!
Is media thriving in this democratic dispensation?
Having looked at the media from the colonial times, after independence and up to the military era, one would say that the media had fought the good fight. You know what is interesting? Many of those journalists who fought these battles turned out to be politicians. I am proud to say that Segun Osoba, Lateef Jakande, Bisi Onabanjo et al were all governors and nobody could honestly say that these people were political failures. Jakande is remembered in Lagos today with great affection. Bisi Onabanjo is similarly remembered in Ogun State as is Segun Osoba. So we as media professionals have a lot to be proud of, because we didn’t just talk, we did when it came to a political challenge. Now we had gone through all those stages and the military is gone. We are proud that we had been in the trenches and we have won our freedom back from the military. However, the profession is still regarded with suspicion by politicians. It is an uncomfortable relationship. A marriage of inconvenience. I suspect that a true Nigerian politician would rather not have the media peering over his shoulder. As against what the Americans would say, ‘I would rather have a nation without an army than one without the media’. The Nigerian politician would be happier without a watchdog , without anyone scrutinizing him or watching over his activities. But wishes are not horses, so they cannot ride them, so we must continue. And unfortunately for politicians our role a the watchdog is guaranteed by the constitution. We are the only profession, outside of the legal profession, that is so guaranteed. I am not giving the media a carte blanche though; because some of us have been compromised. That is part of the dangers of having too many media men who don’t really care about the direction the the profession goes. As long as their favourite people are in charge or aspiring to be in charge, they are ok.
Your contributions to Nigerian literature cannot be forgotten in a hurry, but Sir you are much more recognized as a journalist than as a writer, how do you react to that?
I feel sad that my work as a writer is not as well recognized as my work as a journalist. You know, people remember me in The Guardian. They remember me in CHIC Magazine, many remember me in NTA and a lot more in my recent stint as DG Radio Nigeria. But I believe that one of the greatest contributions to nation building is my book called ‘Without a Silverspoon’.
I believe my most important contribution is that book, especially because of the nature of the printed word, a book, especially a good book, is immortal. Silverspoon should have been something every child is exposed to read because it is a tool for character building. However, it is still very widely read. It is read even in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia indeed much of Southern Africa as a whole. There is in fact a Russian edition. Many Africans can identify with the culture that I was raised in and it resonates with their own society – a culture of values where money was not the defining factor. My father was not rich. Indeed he was poor by every measurable standard. But he was very wealthy in the standards and morals and values that define the integrity and worth of a man. I keep saying to people that if my father was rich materially and poor morally, I would have been a poorer man myself.
If we were a nation that thinks for the future, if we were not a nation in a hurry, and a nation of with-immediate-effect, if we were a nation that plans the way the Chinese plan, decades ahead, that my little book would have been something deeply implanted in the psyche and character of many of today’s generation. If you look at China what you see today were not planned yesterday or last year year. They were conceptualized as early as the time of Mao Tse Tung. TThis is part of the reason for their success. Meticulously long term planning, which you can also see in their seamless order of succession. We may not see it in the traditional sense of the Western concept of democracy, but it works for them. While the leader is serving for ten years, his successor is carefully doing his apprenticeship, learning the ropes, and in the end there will be no abandoned projects, stops and starts, because they are all singing from the same hymn sheet. Notice that the Chinese do not have a permanent National Assembly that gobbles up huge resources. The
Peoples Congress meet at a particular time of the year, for a specified duration; they debate what is debatable, and pass laws or resolutions where they are required. Somebody would say they are rubber-stamp. If within ten years they have rubber-stamped their economy into the second largest in the world, and poised to be the first in matter of years, then i like that kind of rubber stamp. Instead of these wasteful things we are doing here, sitting around and spending six months to pass an annual budget, then we need to have a rethink. Mark you, the most expensive legislature in the whole world is Nigerian National Assembly.