Democracy and decorum
By Ebere Onwudiwe
SAY what you like about Nigeria, freedom of the press is not one of its shortcomings. From dictatorships to democratic regimes, one consistent honour in the country's political history is undoubtedly the heroism of its journalists. Nigerian journalists have over the years fought to enshrine in our political culture one important element of democracy, freedom of expression.
This particular freedom is an organic necessity because the government in a democratic society needs criticism and good reporting to govern well. It is in this sense that one of the roles of the media is said to be that of a watchdog digging up facts to warn the rest of us about public managers that are behaving badly. It is not clear how well Nigerian journalists rate on this score. But whether they rate high or low, it is certainly not for lack of trying. This much should be very clear to readers of the Op-ed pages of our best newspapers.
Editorial opinions in Nigeria's print media have been very popular since the emancipating pens of the great Nnamdi Azikiwe and his journalistic contemporaries. But if he were here today, even the outspoken and ever-provocative Zik would tell us that useful commentary on public affairs is always tempered with decorum.
Zik learned this the hard way. In his early days in the Gold Coast, his personal attacks on the drab and illiterate leaders and chiefs of the Gold Coast, improved nothing. Instead, they led to more intrigues on the part of the chiefs and leaders until they finally ran him out of town. Name-calling and other forms of personal attacks do not make for productive commentary. This is because heaping insults on government officials tend to obfuscate important issues of public interest rather than educate the public.
If day in and day out intelligent policy insights are obscured by undisciplined and visceral attacks on officials of the government, then essays on public affairs are so many words in hot air. While this kind of venting may be good for the egos of Op-ed writers, it can only be counterproductive for the country. Here is why. A good commentary on public affairs should be informative and provocative. But more than these, it should suggest solutions for the problem it addresses. It can be prejudiced and even bellicose in a way aimed at engendering discussions and responses. This is how it advances good governance.
What it should not do is alienate the public officials, the very targets of the ideas the commentators are proposing. The resort to name calling and other forms of invidious comment indicate the absence of useful ideas rather than journalistic valour and backbone. Personal attacks on thin-skinned public officials attract resentment, not respect. Therefore, during those inevitable seasons of intellectual famine, it is best for public intellectuals to take a break rather than lash out.
Given the explicit recognition of its role in the Constitution, the media has a special role in the Nigerian political system. Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution expressly assigns to the media the duty of monitoring governance on behalf of the people. This is an awesome responsibility that makes the media a constitutional (albeit in part, privatised) part of the division of powers in the Nigerian system.
The constitutional assignment of this oversight function is partly intended to discourage the abuse of journalists by officials. Having gallantly stood as the bastion of free press and human rights, Nigerian journalists have over the years suffered false imprisonment and even death. Therefore, the importance of this constitutional role cannot be over-emphasised.
That said, constitutional recognition comes with some moral obligation. Specifically, while the media must carry out its monitoring function unimpeded, it must do so in a way which must preserve the system it has been asked to monitor. That obligation should rank as high in the eyes of the media as right to a free press. The duty of growing and sustaining the democratic system is interwoven with the right to free press.
The trick is how to achieve one without sacrificing the other. Let us go to the Americans for an example. When the election of President Bush was settled by a narrow majority of the Supreme Court, American democracy was severely challenged. But to preserve the system, there was a unity of deference to the judgment of the supreme arbiter of constitutional law by the free American press. The preservation of the authority of the courts, a corner stone of American democracy was judged more important than continuation of the political war. Such self-imposed discipline is evidence of maturity, not timidity.
This, therefore, is my controversial statement of the day. To build our democracy, it may on occasion be necessary to quietly sacrifice our right to curse out government officials, especially when the hurtful words we use are not necessary to make the points we push. Do not get me wrong. It is okay to describe a given policy as stupid, but it is not good for our nascent democracy to describe the responsible minister as moronic. For our emerging democracy, a little politesse in our newspaper columns can go a long way.
But you say, haba, is it not the president who uses the word, idiot
- There you go. Not decorous, not nice at all.
