Abstract
The imperial power, Britain, was in a quandary over the extent of press freedom to allow in Nigeria, its largest black African colony, during the Second World War. This fundamental issue so emphasized by Allied propagandists as one of the freedoms for which the world was at war has not yet received scholarly attention and is investigated in this study. The colonial state so much pressurized the local press that the latter had walked a tight rope throughout the duration of the war. An anti press freedom enactment which took effect on the declaration of war had foreshadowed the muffling of freedom of expression at a critical period of Nigerian history when the press was the only viable avenue open to colonized Nigerians to ventilate war induced grievances. This historical study applies the critical evaluative methodology built on archival sources, including the newspapers in the repositories of the Nigerian National Archives, Ibadan and the University of Ibadan Library to expand the cumulative knowledge of Nigerian media history. It concludes that the Nigerian press exploited loopholes in the censorship regulations, the palpable support of the newspaper publishers for Allied victory, and the restraining influence of the Colonial Office, to articulate Nigerian grievances and evade the colonial sledge hammer. The latter situation was only reversed when the colonial state enforced full press censorship after the European phase of the war as its strategy of stemming the rising tempo of militant nationalism in wartime Nigeria. Keywords: Nigerian media history, press freedom, Second World War, British colonialism, militant nationalism
Highlights
This article examines sustained attempts by the colonial state to muzzle press freedom in Nigeria, Britain’s largest African colony during the Second World War, 1939-45 by the Imperial power .Though the war was largely a European affair, but Nigeria was constrained to fight in defence of its colonial master, despite the colony’s safe distance away from the war theatre
At the onset of the Second World War which Allied propagandists had proclaimed was driven by the zeal to defeat Nazism and its inherent doctrine of racial superiority, Imperial Britain imposed checks on the freedom of expression through censorship regulations that foreboded the muzzling of press freedom in wartime Nigeria
The regime of press censorship which was imposed in the metropole was extended to colonial Nigeria, with an information officer employed to ensure its enforcement
Summary
This article examines sustained attempts by the colonial state to muzzle press freedom in Nigeria, Britain’s largest African colony during the Second World War, 1939-45 by the Imperial power .Though the war was largely a European affair, but Nigeria was constrained to fight in defence of its colonial master, despite the colony’s safe distance away from the war theatre. At the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the Nigerian press, reflecting the mood and inclination of the educated elite, had mobilized Nigerians to support Imperial Britain. Given the spontaneous support of the press and Nigerians for Imperial Britain’s victory over Nazi Germany, why did officialdom adopt measures which threatened to erode the goodwill of Nigerians? Why and how did the press strive to sustain its freedom in the circumstance of wartime when the colonial state wielded enormous emergency powers to compel obedience to its will and policies? Given the profound impact of the war on the ideology of colonialism, how successful was the colonial state in managing Nigerians’ yearnings for freedom, even in wartime, which they ventilated through the medium of the press? Given the spontaneous support of the press and Nigerians for Imperial Britain’s victory over Nazi Germany, why did officialdom adopt measures which threatened to erode the goodwill of Nigerians? Why and how did the press strive to sustain its freedom in the circumstance of wartime when the colonial state wielded enormous emergency powers to compel obedience to its will and policies? What was the impact of the concomitant mutual breach of trust and antagonism by the two institutions on the sustenance of the support of Nigerians for wartime measures in the face of evidence of racial discrimination? given the profound impact of the war on the ideology of colonialism, how successful was the colonial state in managing Nigerians’ yearnings for freedom, even in wartime, which they ventilated through the medium of the press?
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