Within every socioeconomic realm, the media and the legislature are the two estates which happen to be the most influential and, perhaps, the most closely related in objective. The advocacy roles which members of the press play more often than not stir corresponding advocacy actions within a legislative assembly. By their functions also, the media and the legislature are the closest institutions to the masses.
Yet, despite of their shared social aspirations, members of both institutions do not seem to have forged the level of closely knitted relationship that one would have expected of the press and the legislature. This experience is very peculiar among young democracies in Africa. Rather than enjoy very robust relationship, you see them operate as strange bedfellows; an atomistic pair always at loggerheads with each other
In a democracy, members of the lawmaking institution know full well that they cannot shy away from a robust engagement with media practitioners. Truth is that both the lawmaker and the journalist know that democracy is the only system that can guarantee them the opportunity of a job or to even do the job freely. Take for instance, if the military were still here, there would be no Akwa Ibom state House of Assembly. Think about it also, if we still had the military, do you think Akwa Ibom state alone would boast of well over four hundred journalists covering the state? You would either choose to be military mouthpiece, shutting your eyes against misgovernance, or you report the truth from the trenches and at the risk of your life. So, while the executive and the judiciary arms of government will always by any means survive outside of democracy, the lawmaker needs democracy to perform his duties, and the journalist needs democracy to make his job easier to do. To keep democracy therefore, these two key advocates of free society must find a common ground to make democracy thrive
Whereas the destiny of a people in a democracy can be determined by the combination of media and legislative actions, both institutions must consciously and constantly seek new avenues to engage themselves on ways it can sustain democracy. Those who understand the workings of government would tell you very honestly that any democracy can be grounded by a combination of simple misdirected legislative actions and a significant level of media hostilities. While the media play the very crucial role of setting economic, political, and cultural agenda in a democracy like ours, members of the legislature attempt to create the legislative framework for the realisation of these set agenda. Also, a legislative action can meet its worst frustration where it is founded in a hostile media ecosystem. We have seen very many legislations in our democracy fail right from the level of conception not because they were not well-intended or well framed but because they were met with very negative media narratives. Several bills have also been passed into law that should not have, but they got the quiet and easy passage because the media failed to ask questions which would have frustrated the bills at just first reading.
Other bills have yet to become laws not because they do not deserve to be laws but because they do not guarantee that they will protect certain powerful interests when they become laws. Take for instance our Petroleum Industry Bill which has been begging to be passed into law at the national assembly. The media are yet to adequately unveil the power-play which have continued to plague that bill. The media are not asking enough questions concerning the bill, and that is why public interest has not been sufficiently built around the bill to the extent of forcing quicker legislative action on that all-important document.
But the question also is: from where does one begin to ask informed questions about a system or a subject matter which one knows too little or nothing about? How do you critically engage a system that has deliberately or otherwise, refused to engage you? Does the larger body of our media professionals even understand the basics of how things run in a normal legislative setting? Might this be why speculative journalism seems to be thriving against rock-solid media engagement of our legislature at all levels?
As our democracy grows, the need for constant interfacing between the media and the legislature continues to mount. The need to open new frontiers for the engagement of our pressmen by their counterparts in the legislature continues to rise. Our increasingly ubiquitous and technologically complex media environment makes it imperative for the lawmaking arm of government and media practitioners to close ranks towards safeguarding our democracy. The relationship flow between both institutions cannot remain a top-down affair while we expect them to create a pool of their individual potentials and maximise them.
The gap in interaction between the media and the legislature is primarily responsible for the fact that almost every news story that media audiences get from a national or state assembly reporter takes two angles: what the House members or the senators said and the politics that may have influenced what they said. You hardly get to read what the implications of a bill are. There are hardly media analyses of motions no matter how critical the motions are. The distant relationship between both institutions is why certain bills that should not survive beyond a first reading have gone on to become laws of the land.
One the whole however, I think that journalists can create a new narrative and reverse the trend. I think we can move away from the current trend of just reporting the legislature to contributing to legislative actions. To do this, we must assess the opportunities that we have, and the nexus that we can create to foster a more harmonious and unalloyed partnership. We must look at those platforms which both institutions can together leverage to influence social justice, human rights, economic empowerment, the protection of lives and property.
Training is first. I usually ask my colleagues in government: if indeed the media are the fourth estate of the realm, how come journalists are never given the privilege of receiving the same level of training that government spends so much money to give to members of the first, second, and third estates of the realm? The only way that our democracy can benefit from a robust relationship between the legislature and the media is for both to exist at the same level of knowledge of how the legislature works in a democratic setting. Just as it is right to make provisions for the training of a new lawmaker, I think it is also proper to constantly train legislative correspondents who will be reporting the lawmaker to his constituents.
This is because the media practitioners must first understand the workings of the legislature in order to adequately report its achievements or failures. In order for the media practitioner to be able to cause a lawmaker to be accountable in office, he would need to be trained enough to understand the three basic functions of the lawmaker: Lawmaking, Oversight, and Representation.
Therefore, the duties of the lawmaker go beyond the bills he presents on the floor of the assembly. Now, the lawmaker gets a terrible report card from the press every January because we have not created the platform for our journalists to know deeply enough that lawmaking goes beyond simply presenting a bill. I am sure that by the beginning of 2016, a long list lawmakers from the national and state assemblies will run in the media with a staggering headline: UNPRODUCTIVE LEGISLATORS WHO DIDN’T SPONSOR A SINGLE BILL IN ONE YEAR. By media standard, the best contributor to a democracy from the legislative arm of government is the lawmaker who presents more bills on the floor of the House.
While there may really exist unproductive members of the parliament, the media can do a lot to guide members of the public to have a deeper assessment of the things that lawmakers do. Government and nongovernmental agencies as well as well-meaning private sector institutions must therefore see to it that journalists receive the benefit of trainings outside of media writing. The journalists must also constantly develop themselves to the point that they can be trusted enough for engagement by government institutions. To report government in a democracy, one would need more than writing skills.
Another area which can help strengthen media-legislative engagement in a democracy as we have in Nigeria is a more constant interaction of both bodies. Fortunately, the legislative arm of government runs a very open system, one which encourages public participation in the business of governance. This is exemplified by the open sittings and deliberations that the lawmakers have. The media will have to leverage on this openness to advance democracy. For instance, how many media establishments or journalists in our state have sponsored a bill to the house through a committee? Truth is that, no matter how connected a lawmaker is to his constituents, he may not be as exposed to their challenges much as the journalist who covers the constituencies. In other climes, we hear of several legislative actions which were inspired by media reports. But more than just report these stories, journalists can by themselves instigate requisite legislative actions, and follow up on them. This is another way that a media-legislative engagement can be made to attain a more meaningful height.
Currently the media community in our country has witnessed an unprecedented boom. I am sure that the social media has given the traditional media a stiff competition since internet services in the country attained a marked height of accessibility and affordability. Whereas our media environment is attaining serious sophistication, democracy in Nigeria will suffer if legislations are not in place to give the operational framework to the new media. While the blossoming media environment is good for free speech, a significant feature of democracy, there is the urgent need for government to create regulations.
Take for instance, it is easier to sue somebody for defamation where his utterances on AKBC TV injures your person. But how do you sue the man if his perceived defamatory statement was put on a YouTube channel, viewed a million times, and shared by two million Facebook and twitter users? What laws do you invoke and how easy is it to win the case given our current legal provisions? Right now, the new challenge before lawmakers in Nigeria is how to create necessary regulations for online media use and at the same time not discourage robust citizen journalism. This is an area of engagement that I believe traditional media practitioners like members of the NUJ can sit with lawmakers on a round table to talk about.
I have heard a lot of expert opinions which often end by putting the blame of the disconnect between the media and the legislature wholly on the legislature. They say the “government people” are naturally hostile to the press and that we deliberately create a closed system which discourages mutual engagement. Much as this view is not wholly untrue, it is not to be bought wholesale. It must be made clear that no system engages a people who do not by their own deeds prove that they should be engaged at a higher level of public service.
The media must up their game to show that they possess the credentials for profitable engagement in a democratic setting. Our media have over the years been key players in the achievement of the democracy that we enjoy today. But much as the politicians have lowered the standard of politics and leadership, media professionals also have the blame to take for having watered down professional media practice. The consequence is that both the politician and the media professional continue to view each other with huge suspicion. This unhealthy suspicion makes a sincere engagement difficult to achieve.
In conclusion, I urge us to draw up a charter for a media-legislative engagement that will result in improved welfare for the citizenry, enhance accountability by the legislature, and professionalism by the media. Despite the often contentious relationship between the press and the legislature, each cannot exist in a vacuum. Both institutions can, and must, work to strengthen each other as well as create a more informed and better represented public.
Many thanks for listening.
Being a lecture presented by Onofiok Luke during the 2015 Press Week of the NUJ, Akwa Ibom State Council.
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