The Nigerian press and the challenge of private newspaper ownership: A study of the Nigerian Tribune, 1949–2009

Abstract

Beyond playing its major role of informing, educating and entertaining, the press in different contexts, cultures and dispensations remains a major propaganda tool, and hence its use and abuse by proprietors, political and government elites, and people of influence in society. The clamour to establish and sustain a newspaper or a chain of publications becomes understandable even when the challenges are great. Whereas the desire to promote vibrant nationalism, challenge autocracy in different forms, or pursue a cause that the proprietor strongly believes in could be central to the founding of a newspaper, the use to which it is put – which oftentimes could be the hidden motive for its establishment or a manifestation of the derailment of the original purposes – has provoked interest in probing the motives for newspaper ownership. As the oldest surviving privately owned newspaper in Nigeria, the Nigerian Tribune (NT) provides a classic example of how newspapers come to serve a common cause while at the same time projecting the personal ambitions and interests of their founders. This article examines the challenges of private newspaper ownership in Nigeria using the NT as a case study. The article is situated within the context of theories on the political economy of media with emphasis on the propaganda model. It argues that in spite of NT’s contribution to the nationalist struggle and the process of nation-building, the newspaper was a potent political weapon in the hands of its owner. The use to which it was put by the successor-owner lends further credence to this claim. The article concludes that among other factors, a combination of dynamism and ideologically driven partisanship is needed to sustain newspapers and improve their effectiveness.