Exclusive: How Lagos press colonizes Niger Delta

The electronic, print and online media, based in Lagos State, have continued to colonize the Niger Delta, in terms of depriving the region of positive and development-driven media mention, as well as dampening the psyche of media practitioners in the region, who are either in the employ of the Lagos based media outfits or do some form of professional consultancy with them.

Checks by Fresh Angle International in the last five years, revealed that while the conventional electronic, print and online media in Lagos, promote stories of ‘less importance’ from the South-West Geopolitical Zone and give its related issues elaborate media mention, they either kill or reduce the effect of ‘significant reports’ from the Niger Delta in their programmes.

Experience has also shown that developmental stories from the Niger Delta, only get appreciable mention when hugely commercialized or else they are watered down drastically.

While news hunters and other media practitioners in Lagos as well as other parts of the South-West, receive professional awards and sometimes get foreign sponsorships to attend refresher courses, their colleagues in the same media houses, based in the Niger Delta, are left to practice in unpalatable circumstances and reasonable number of their reports die during editorial, thus impacting negatively on their confidence.

Popular National electronic media, ironically owned by people from Niger Delta, barely discuss issues that promote development of the oil and gas-rich region, except such issues are controversial or commercial-driven, no thanks to the choice of persons at the management and editorial levels of the media houses.

Checks by Fresh Angle International also revealed deliberate strategy by the Lagos based influential media from shying away from poor governance, now associated with the Niger Delta.

The unnamed Lagos media giants, promote state governors from the Niger Delta as a result of pecuniary gains and fail to put the governors to task in terms of accountability, as regards the huge revenue allocations to the states and their IGR potentials. In-fact, the media houses kill stories that tend to go against bad governance in the region.

Near zero interest is shown on issues such as Ocean Surge, Environmental Degradation and Pollution, that negatively affects the Niger Delta States. If the Multinational Oil and Gas Companies were to be exploiting the mineral resources from the South-West and situate their Corporate Offices/Staff Quarters in the Niger Delta, the media space in Lagos would have been awash with the perceived injustice.           

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