NIGERIA’S SECURITY, HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES AND THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM IN TACKLING THEM

 By: Isaac Adeoye

“Journalism can never be silent: That is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the signs of horror are still in the air.” — Henry Anatole Grunwald

The media is recognized as the fourth estate of the realm, a crucial institution, and frequently plays a crucial part in the ongoing global war against terror. The government and the general public act as the issue's producers, while the media fills the role of a mediator by giving them the knowledge they need to make informed decisions.

Because you must be informed before you can be aware of certain situations, journalism has been playing a crucial function as the fourth arm of government by telling the people about what they were unable to observe. If one is not informed, such a person will be deformed.

Yet, with the rise of the terrorist organization Boko Haram and soaring crime rates in the nation, Nigeria has been dealing with security issues for more than ten years.

Wole Soyinka has also bemoaned the rising insecurity in the country. He claimed that kidnappings and the recent suspected ritual execution of Timothy Adegoke Oludare in Osogbo, Osun State, had caused Nigeria to deteriorate into a scenario where human dignity has been undervalued.

Additionally, the Boko Haram terrorist organization first appeared in Nigeria's northeastern regions in 2009, and since then, it has spread to other parts of the country, creating security issues for the nation. Armed gangs, kidnappers, and separatist organizations, in addition to Boko Haram, which has been using religion for nefarious purposes, have made the security situation in the Western African nation of more than 200 million people worse.

Furthermore, the coup of 1966 is unquestionably the horrific foundation for the current level of insecurity in Nigeria. Mutual mistrust between the Hausa/Fulani and Igbo ethnic groups was the direct result of this coup. Strong underground currents fueled by that mistrust are what keep people insecure today.

The health, safety, or well-being of a community or sizable group of people is threatened by a single event or a series of events that constitute a humanitarian dilemma. It typically spreads across a huge land area and could be either an internal or external conflict.

One of the worst humanitarian catastrophes the world has ever seen is the result of a ten-year battle with no end in sight. 27,000 people have died as a result of the violence, the majority of them civilians.

More specifically, a large portion of the humanitarian needs are caused by intercommunal violence, poverty, weak or nonexistent institutions that are required to provide basic services, and unstable rule of law.

All in all, there is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice that does not live by secrecy. Get all these things out in the open, describe them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later, public opinion will sweep them away.

(Pulitzer, cited in Oloyede, 2011, p. 64). This suggests that journalism is essential in revealing any secret to the public and that regardless of how perilous a secret may be, it has been revealed to the public thus far, let alone allowed for public judgment.