Promoting Security In 2019 Elections: The Role Of The Media

Being speaking notes

 By

 Ledum Mitee,

 COORDINATOR, INITIATIVE FOR CREDIBLE ELECTIONS ( ICE)

 at the 2018 Correspondents’ Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the NUJ, Rivers State

held at Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, 19th November, 2018

Let me begin with thanking the organisers of this event for extending the invite to me on behalf of the Initiative for Credible Elections (ICE) to be the keynote speaker here today . During the launch of the Initiative for Credible Elections earlier this year, I stated that the urgent need for the Initiative became imperative in the face of our past history of political violence and fraudulent elections and the observed rhetoric and body language of some of the key political actors that are capable of inciting followers to violence and overheating the political space in this state ahead of the 2019 elections. Needless to stress  the fact that recent events in the past weeks have confirmed some of our worst fears . As I explained then, since the role of the press as partners in this initiative cannot be overemphasized, we    therefore invited the press to take that event of our public presentation of the Initiative as our fervent invitation to them for a  robust partnership. I am thus excited by the fact that today’s event cannot be but a positive response by the Correspondents’ Chapel to our invitation for partnership for which we are grateful.

The word media is derived from the word medium signifying mode or carrier and it was first used in reference to books, newspapers, magazines, that is the print media, and with the advent of modern technology, media grew to  encompass television, movies and radio. In today’s world, with  the growth of the internet, a whole new spectrum commonly referred to as social media have emerged and proliferated. Let me, from the onset, confess that as I am speaking to an audience of main media correspondents, I make no pretense of extending this discourse to cover the peculiar issues relating to social media except, of course, in so far as the main media and social media have become mutually interdependent. For this reason and the other reason of available time, this intervention is by no means an exhaustive treatment of the subject under discussion.

Speaking to an audience of media practitioners, I consider it disrespectful for me to reiterate what you obviously know better than me, what the traditional role of the media is in a democracy. This, as you all know which includes being  watchdogs of society, voter education, communication and peace building practitioners. I would rather focus our discussion on just one or two emerging trends in the potential threats to non violent elections and how we could deploy our traditional roles to check them.

As indicated earlier, the history of elections in Rivers State in the recent past has been one characterized by electoral fraud associated with political tensions, crisis, and violence perpetrated by some political actors and unprofessional conduct of some few INEC staff and security agencies. The result is that the outcome of elections has been the subversion of the democratic process rather than its consolidation. Indeed the INEC Report into the last Rivers Legislative Re-run elections indicated that apart from politicians, some security operatives and INEC officials that were expected to protect the electoral process, subverted it.

The starting point in festering these violence is obviously before the elections when violent languages and hate speeches by political leaders are deployed without regard to the implications for violent actions by followers. The media’s role in stemming the effects of such behavior must therefore start with  ensuring that information that exposes such threats are provided and reported in a timely, equitable, fair and balanced manner. Politicians who use or whose followers use such language capable of inciting violence must be exposed and condemned.

In addition, we must also expose behaviors, not just speeches that can also incite responses that could lead to violence. I have in mind some activities that is becoming increasingly rampant in this part of the world. That is the use and abuses of security agencies including men of the armed forces that should ordinarily be engaged for the protection of our territorial integrity and only called in aid of the police during serious civil strife. The trend I am referring to here manifests in the deployment of troops in the convoy of politicians. Nowadays how connected a politician is to power is tested by the number of vans of soldiers that guides him and his family members. What this does is that it sends a message of intimidation to the opponents, conveying the impression that the playing field is anything but level. This can invariably set off a chain reaction by those so intimidated to seek  their protection elsewhere including through self help. The point here is that any such posturing sends a message of partisanship by the state (in?)security forces which can trigger a feeling of hopelessness and lack of trust in the state security apparatus on the part of the disadvantaged opponents. This invariably can lead them to seeking their protection from non state insecurity forces, and thus violence.

When this trend is added to the feature whereby even reports of violence against some politically exposed persons are ignored by the police and the security agents, a dangerous cocktail of violence ensues through what appears to the political opponents as an inevitable need to resort to self help protection methods. The outcome is usually the violent confrontations we see on election days.

The media’s role to act as society’s vanguard must therefore be proactively focused on tendencies such as these that germinate into violence during elections. Exposing and focusing on the trend by the media must also include alerting INEC and the security agencies to their responsibilities under the law.  This is so because under and by virtue of the Electoral ( Amendment ) Act 2015, the army has only a very limited role in our elections. By Section 29(3) of that Act , the responsibility of deployment of security forces for election matters is vested in INEC and the role of the army is strictly ‘limited only for the purposes of  securing the distribution and delivery of election materials and protection of election officials personnel during elections’ and does not include protection of politicians before and during elections.

I realize that in asking the media to play this role they would be acting against what would be powerful political interests. But then the media’s role to protect public interest entails acting as a watchdog over all powerful institutions in society and ensuring that their decisions and actions are in the interest of the larger society. As Jimmy Reid, a Scottish trade unionist,  argues  ‘the task of the media in a democracy is not to ease the path of those who govern but to make life difficult for them by constant vigilance as to how they exercise the power they only hold in the trust of the people’. That is why the media are said to be the fourth estate of the realm or the fourth arm of government because the media help to put politicians and all powerful institutions in check. The media should therefore help to educate the electorate on the workings of not only the Electoral Commission but  all institutions especially the security forces involved in our elections in order for all to appreciate the responsibility that has been placed on their shoulders and other actors to deepen our democratic credentials.

In performing its role , the media must not see itself as merely recorders of history. That would be too simplistic an approach which could have  dangerous implications. Rather, the media should play a crucial role not only in reporting events but in shaping what we think and how we think about those events. Merely recording events of violence without taking steps to appreciate and explaining the underlying causes of such violence unwittingly glorifies the perpetrators of such violence and disempowers by creating excuses for those who need to take actions. Such trend can also serve to reinforce  stereotypes and justify state violence as it dehumanises and depicts a people as violent and thus  justifies state violence  against them. In this respect, let’s take the example of recent headlines like: ‘Army, Youths clash leads to deaths in Rivers’. The reporting of an incident of what was a protest by youths over the poor road construction leading to flooding of their community that led to the avoidable death of a pregnant mother, which was violently repressed by soldiers escorting some VIP(s) fed on the stereotypical portrayal of Rivers youths as violent and thus unwittingly ‘justified’ what was clearly murder. In the same way, when the police or army accompanying a politician to an election venue, most times to manipulate the electoral process are resisted and violence erupts, the reporting at times are framed as being in defence of public property and to restore peace and order. Reporting security issues and violence by armed security agents as failures of INEC reinforces the clearly unconstitutional roles by such security agents that threatens free and fair elections. What, for instance do we expect the unarmed INEC officials to do in the face of such armed invasion?

The situation becomes more disturbing in the face of evidence that tends to  show that the security agencies that have variously been accused of subverting the electoral processes act outside established security institutional frameworks. They are , according to various accounts, not usually part of the security personnel officially deployed for election duties. They are often said to be those accompanying politicians and those operating outside established routine duties. If SARS is the acronym for Special Anti-Armed Robbery Squad, why shouldn’t we ask what armed robbery duties are they on on election days? In any case, why should the media not interrogate and question the establishment and maintenance of SARS and IG’S  MONITORING SQUAD by the IG outside the control of the Commissioner of Police in the state?

In addition to the above, let me also caution that in our reporting at times, too much focus on merely the incidents of violence can be counterproductive. This is so as protestors are most often aware that one of the few ways they will have their concerns heard is if they use violence because many media outlets will only cover their concerns if there is violence. Violence, as we know, begets violence and once it starts and reinforced, it is a difficult cycle to break. The recent trend for journalists themselves to be attacked and to be the victims of violence makes the cycle harder to escape.

In playing the media’s most obvious role of reporting news and information to the general public in order to make educated political choices, the media, therefore, must do a thorough and impartial job when informing the public on all  political events, especially those pertaining to violence. There is no doubt that elections pose a special challenge for the media in this area. The media must strive to remain partisan politically neutral and objective in order to properly educate the public. Media coverage should be unbiased rather than favoring any one candidate or point of view in order for the voters to make informed decisions.

Also, since the media are arguably the most important sources of information and knowledge, they have the enormous power to set society’s agenda. The media should not allow politicians to divert the public’s attention away from their records of performance and other issues relevant to peace, harmony and progress of the society. The media have to be bold to report accurately on anything that can derail the democratic process. They also have to report on irregularities, fraud, threats of violence in a sustained manner to get authorities to respond. Also, groups of thugs who are plotting to disrupt the vote are likely to be arrested and dealt with if the media are able to adequately report on it. For the necessary impact to be felt, however, I dare suggest that such reporting must be sustained and followed through.

In making these assertions, I do not pretend that I am unaware of some of the challenges encountered. The sad trend of commercialization of news has made it difficult for some compelling stories to have the necessary exposure , or to follow up on investigations and hold leaders fully accountable. It has also created journalistic laziness as it forces journalists into ‘press release reporting’ without base investigations. Also, financial challenges make it difficult for most media houses to invest in the training required to ensure their editorial staff produce ethical, technically high quality programmes that people trust. And they cannot pay their staff decent salaries, making journalists vulnerable to corruption. In addition, conflict – rather than peace – sells, and inflammatory coverage tends to be click bait which tasks media practitioners on how to balance the need for  economic viability of the media outfit against the need for a shift of the narrative from conflict to peace.

I also tend to share the view that as advocates for peace, journalists should have a much more subjective rather than impartial role, which does not sit well with a wide circle of both practitioners and academics.There are many in today’s Nigeria who habour grave doubts as to whether fact-based, independent, transparent, accountable and impartial reporting still exist because of the business and political interests of media owners and the lack of good pay and training for journalists. This is in addition to partisanship as well as institutional and self censorship, regulation and attack from parties that want to undermine its influence.

Let me conclude by asserting that I have an abiding faith that as media practitioners you have a major role to play in not only highlighting speeches, activities and actions of our politicians and other institutions like the security agencies that are capable of threatening the security of the 2019 elections but also in constructing these as issues of prime public concern. In doing this, we, must explode the myth of journalism that suggests that journalists in the field are independent and neutral recorders of history. Not only does that stance belie the many ways in which specific stories can be edited and polluted but most importantly, in the realization in every contest between justice and injustice, neutrality can be more of an alliance with evil than good.