Nigeria’s Media Democracy: A 2023 Elections Postscript and the Urgency of Now – THISDAYLIVE

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PERSPECTIVE

By Paul Obi

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”  – Thomas Jefferson, Former US President

Democracy is a tricky phenomenon. For the African and Nigerian version of democracy, it has been more daunting; unwilling to accept political equality, freedom and equal measure of voices in the public and civic spaces. But for all that we know, a free press is the most testable and self-evident precondition of a democracy in its true sense. Framers of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution, including the 1979 piece were conversant with this global requirement of the free world: that man and woman; boys and girls; old and young should have the freedom to express themselves in a manner that does not…



Source: Thisday Newspaper