Social Historical Context of the Development of Nigerian Media

The Nigerian press is older than the Nigerian nation. The first newspaper was established by Rev. Henry Townsend of the church missionary society, the press is fifty-five year older than Nigeria nation at independence in 1960. The Nigeria press likewise other African nation press is a product of missionary activities. Sierra leone is the first West African country to publish a newspaper, The Royal Gazette in 1801 while Ghana followed the suit in 1822 with the publication of The Royal Gold Coast Gazette later in 1958, Charles Bannerman, the first African Editor in the British colony of Gold Coast published the Accra Herald, a year before Henry Townsend’s Iwe Iroyin, in Abeokuta South West Nigeria. When Rev. 

Townsend published the Iwe Iroyin, the objective was a combination of social, political and cultural commentary spiced with religious reporting in all effort to reach the Yoruba people. Two major factors that aided the establishment and growth of the early press were the schools and printing press which were the products of the missionaries. The schools provided the educated manpower needed to assist in producing the newspaper and the literate public to buy and read them.

 The printing press also provided the initial economic base on which the first set of indigenous newspaper owners established their businesses. Though Townsend started the Iwe Iroyin as an instrument of Christian evangelism and education, later it became his chief weapon in his ambitious political is propaganda. The demise of the newspaper in1867 is related to a political crisis in Egbaland. The point is very significant in the sense that it could be considered as the origin of the high political profile that the press later assumed in the country. 

The early press was more or less a protest and oppositional press in the hands of the nationalist. Nigerian press has drawn its strength from the plurality of the Nigerian society and the divisions within the ruling class. Lagos press: in 1863, Robert Campbell established in Lagos, a weekly publication called Anglo African. Campbell was motivated by the political happening in and around Lagos colony at that time the newspaper lasted for two years, as it went to rest in 1865. Later the nationalist newspaper came up. The newspapers were politically motivated, politically conscious and directed towards political participation by the educated indigenous elite.

 Another major feature of the nationalist newspapers was the private ownership most if not all, the newspapers were privately owned, and the policy statement determined by the owner or proprietor. Quite often the proprietor was the editor. A press historian has noted that majority of the pioneer newspapermen were either those anxious to recover from financial ruin arising from bankruptcy or those in want of employment. However, those who came after the pioneers were equally motivated by their material interest Press and Military: it is widely criticized about the role the media played in military coup that ended the first republic on January 15, 1966. It is observed that the event that followed up to the beginning of the civil war in 1967 shows the ethnic difference and fractured political system which led to the coup. Broadcasting: reflects most closely the country’s political and economic development from its humble beginning as a BBC outpost in 1932, broadcasting broadcasting before the 1990’s became rather than less closely integrated into government at both national and regional level. 

The centralization of broadcasting in the hands of the colonial authority in Lagos came to an end in 1959 with the establishment of the broadcasting WNBC-WNTV the Western Nigerian Government . the establishment of the broadcasting organization was ‘borne out of the conflicts of ownership control and access that erupt between the Western Government and the Colonial masters. Though now there are now many privately owned broadcasting stations, the federal and the state governments still dominate the airwaves with NTA and FRCN leading the airwaves. The Media in the Fourth Republic: the press became the midwives of nigeria’s nascent democracy through its vibrancy and resilience struggle in the build up of the civilian democracy in may 1999. The official empowerment of the media as the fourth estate of the realm of governance came with the provision of chapter 2 section 22 of the 1999 constitution.