Corruption in Nigeria is crippling and damaging the country’s fragile democracy. Money has been a key tool in distorting the political process and governance of this African nation of over 150 million citizens.
IREX provided a series of media trainings to improve the quality and professionalism of election reporting in Nigeria. The events supported the International Foundation for Election Systems’ (IFES) [8] project to strengthen the role of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in its efforts to monitor political financing and disclosure for the next scheduled elections in 2007. The IFES program is funded by the British Foreign Development Agency (DFID) and IREX contributed support from the Starr Foundation.
The series of media trainings, held in Abuja and Kano, focused on developing the role of journalists and broadcasters in tracking funds used by candidates and political parties during elections. Samuel Compton, IREX director for the Serbia ProMedia project, led the sessions and provided the tools needed to cover political financing, including seeking public documentation from the INEC, multi-source reporting, fact checking, analysis, and using NGO’s or civil society groups to help support a story. The trainings aim to allow journalists to raise Nigerians’ awareness of who is supporting their political leaders and how that support has influenced their work and commitments to voters. The seminars also served as an important opportunity to improve media relations between the INEC and local journalists.
“The broadcast media’s investigative capacity remains largely limited. And until these factors are properly and adequately addressed, the broadcast journalist will continue to concentrate on the coverage of mundane campaign events and photo opportunities without much attention on party and campaign financing.” Imoni Mac Amarere, General Manager of Africa Independent Television.
Although Nigeria has unambiguous rules governing political financing, in the last six years of multi-party democracy, these laws have been observed more in their breach. In many cases during this time the media has restricted itself to reporting financial scandals amongst the political elite, rather than investigating the financial dealings of the parties themselves. It is clear that journalists need to develop the skills required to present this complex issue to the public at large, otherwise the continuing wholesale avoidance of political party finance rules could damage Nigeria’s fragile democracy, thus reducing the growth of democratic governance for years to come.
“If journalists can successfully follow the money trail, then the electorate can learn who truly is behind the candidates and to whom they may be beholden,” noted Mr. Compton. The training event not only included journalists, but also representatives from media outlets, members of the Journalists’ Professional Association, as well as INEC leaders. The reporters had the opportunity to work side-by-side with senior officers at INEC and created of a new code of ethics for covering political financing in Nigeria.
In welcoming the joint IFES and IREX training team to Kano, Aljhji Umaru Usman, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for INEC for Kano State, reminded journalists that they had an important task during elections: “In Nigeria, money has become the alpha and omega of life. People tend to attach more importance and recognition to individuals that are rich, regardless of how and where they got their money.” He saw that this attitude had damaging results during elections. “People use money throughout the electioneering processes to win elections and after, to influence both individuals and government decisions. Politicians run helter skelter through money, to buy power.”
IREX has more than 10 years of experience working with independent media development including elections coverage. IREX has conducted media work in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
