Kabiru Danladi Lawanti

Like a script copied from a Hollywood movie, Moshe Ram, the Israel Ambassador to Nigeria tried to play with our collective intelligence in a piece titled ‘Daily Trust, Israel and the Gaza flotilla problem’(Daily Trust, July 6, 2010 pg 25) which was a respond to an earlier editorial of Daily Trust (June 11, 2010) in which he accused the management of the paper of bias by that editorial and two op-eds that appeared on the 10th and 11th of the same month, that condemned Israeli violation of International Laws by attacking the Gaza flotilla on international waters carrying aid and other humanitarian items to the already wretched Palestinians caged in the Gaza enclave for over 4 years, no thanks to Israel. The arguments advanced by the ambassador was that, Daily Trust has either ignorantly or deliberately choose to ignore all the atrocities committed by Palestinians, Hezbollah and other ‘terrorist’ organisations against his people. One thing is very clear from the Mr. Ram’s pi...

One of the criticisms levelled against the press in Nigeria is their irresponsible, reckless, and sensational nature of reports. However one fundamental issue that cannot be denied is the role the press played in Nigeria’s political history and process. Since early 1920s through to early 1940s the media in Nigeria acquired the status of being a mouthpiece of the anti-colonial struggle and also a forefront in the struggle for enthronement of democracy and the return to civil rule in the 1980s and 1990s. That is why it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible for anyone to discuss Nigeria’s transformation and ignore the role media play in the sustenance of the nation as indivisible nation. Despite these outstanding credentials, the media again has found itself in a dilemma at this difficult moment of our nation’s history. It has performed beyond expectation in its role of an arbiter of the various ethnic nationalities that made up the nation. No time has the nation f...