Festus Eribo

Higher Education in Nigeria: Decades of Development and Decline

On October 1, 1960, the British colonialists departed Nigeria, leaving behind one lonely university campus at Ibadan which was established in 1948 as an affiliate of the University of London and a prototype of British educational philosophy for the colonies. Thirty-five years into the postcolonial era, Nigerians established 40 new universities, 69 polytechnics, colleges of technology and of education. Twenty of the universities and 17 polytechnics are owned by the federal government while the state governments control the others.1 Nigerian universities are largely directed by Nigerian faculty and staff. The student enrollment in the universities is on the increase, reaching an estimated 400,000 Nigerian students and a handful of African and nonAfrican students. Although the international news coverage of Nigeria does not reflect this positive development, most of the 100 million people in the country, like other people around the world, are indisputably capable of positive change. The expansion of Nigerian universities is a colossal achievement by any standard in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. There are plans for several private universities. Nsukka was planned in the 1950s and actually kicked off on October 7, 1960, with technical assistance from Michigan State University.2 The following four new universities were established in the three regions of the country: the University of Lagos and the University of Ife in the West, the University of Nigeria at Nsukka in the East, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in the North. With the exception of the University of Nigeria at Nsukka which admitted its first students in 1960, the other three universities were established in 1962 while the University of Ibadan, established in 1948, remained a beacon to many universities in Africa. More emphasis was placed on quality and less on quantity during the early stages of the development of the university system. The new universities were established in recognition of the political realities and cultural diversity of the nation. The geographic spread of the post colonial universities in Nigeria was a balancing act of political brinkmanship directed at satisfying the ethnic or regional groups in Nigeria, a conglomeration of various African Kingdoms and societies. From inception, Nigerian universities encouraged research, teaching and high academic standards. In return, the faculty members were committed to teaching excellence and research productivity in the quest for knowledge, scholarship, and recognition. The post-colonial university curricula and educational philosophy were designed to meet local demands in the public and private sectors.3 The programs were highly rated at home and abroad as a result of the quality and caliber of faculty and students and quality of available resources on campus. Graduates from Nigerian universities were admitted for graduate studies worldwide and many of them were hired by local and international employers. The culture of developing services and infrastructure, equipping laboratories, increasing library acquisitions, and attracting distinguished faculty and brilliant students had begun across the country with fiscal and moral support from the democratically elected federal and regional governments. During the first republic, Nigeria was a beehive of educational development spawned by the cross fertilization of global and indigenous ideas. Several international organizations and foreign governments provided technical and financial assistance. The civilian government was committed to the nurturing of the university system. One of the reasons for the commitment was the dominant paradigm which supported, rightly or wrongly, the notion at the time that literacy, political participation and mass media exposure will lead to modernization, industrialization, and social change in Nigeria. Education, it was believed, was one of the keys to national development. Nigerians trained at home and abroad were expected to train more Nigerians. Many Nigerian scholars trained abroad were encouraged to return to their country with the golden fleece to such perks as official cars, car loans, and subsidized housing. The goal was to have all hands on deck for the tasks of nation building. Post-colonial Nigeria was barely five years old when the constitutionally elected politicians were swept out of office by a group of insubordinate and ambitious military officers on January 15, 1966. Until the rebellious band of soldiers drove away the democratically elected government in 1966, higher education was a priority and there was a conducive climate for research and teaching on Nigerian campuses. Nigerias second republic which lasted four years and three months, October 1979 to December 1983, witnessed the revival of freedom of academic pursuit and an outstanding growth in the development of state owned universities. Eight state universities were established between 1979 and 1983.4 There were fewer disruptions of classes and an unprecedented rise in the number of students at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Once more, education was considered an investment in the people and was encouraged. Again, Nigerian scholars abroad were encouraged to return home and contribute to the development of the Nigerian version of the American presidential system. The democratic political experiment and the concomitant explosion in educational development and enrollment at all

International media use by Nigerian journalists: A survey

This study examined the use of international media by Nigerian journalists and the popularity of some of the leading international radio broadcasts to Nigeria. The data for the study was collected through a survey of Nigerian journalists conducted in Nigeria in December 1994 and January 1995. The study found that 67 per cent of the respondents relied on foreign media for accurate and objective news about Nigeria. The Voice of America, the study found, is more popular than BBC among the respondents, a finding which is at variance with earlier reports about the popularity of BBC among the people of the former British colony.

Russian Newspaper Coverage of Somalia and the Former Yugoslavia

One of the results of the New World Information and Communication Order debate was the invigoration of international communication research on images and coverage of nations in the world media. Specifically, the images of Africa outside the continent became a major research question in Western communication scholarship. The results of these studies contend that several variables such as 1) event characteristics, including deviance, interest, and timeliness; and 2) country characteristics, including economic, political, and cultural significance, proximity and national security, appear to affect the ways one nation is covered by the media of another nation.

Coverage of Africa South of the Sahara by Pravda, Izvestia, Trud and Selskaya Zhizn, 1979–1987: A Content Analysis

This study used a content analysis to examine the coverage of Africa south of the Sahara by Pravda, Izvestia, Trud and Selskaya Zhizn between 1979 and 1987. The study found that beyond ideological prejudice in favor of former pro-Soviet countries, political and crisis news were prominent in the coverage of the region. The dailies scored highly in the amount of positive news published.

Pravda's coverage of the Chernobyl nuclear accident at the threshold of glasnost

This study uses content analysis to examine Pravdas coverage of the Chernobyl nuclear accident against the background of both Western and Soviet scholarship on the Soviet press in order to understand better the role of Pravda in the early days of glasnost. To provide a basis for comparison of the papers coverage of Chernobyl, the study also examines Pravdas coverage of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and The New York Times coverage of both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The study found that for four days, despite glasnost, no news of the nuclear accident in Chernobyl was published by Pravda. However, there was also a four‐day delay in the papers coverage of Three Mile Island. Furthermore, the study found that The New York Times gave earlier and greater coverage to the nuclear accidents at both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

Cultural proximity, topic emphasis and sources of Nigerian media coverage of international news

This study, a part of the 1995 global news flow analysis in 50 countries, focuses on Njgerian media coverage of international news. Nigeria, a top ten country by world imputation size, has Africas largest media market and auditorium with a population of 104 million people. In this study, the Nigerian Television Authority, Radio Nigeria, the Daily Times and The Observer were content analysed. The finding that regionality or proximity in the location of news is a factor in news coverage supports earlier findings about the role of geographic and cultural proximity in news coverage in the US, Russia and other countries. One of the implications of this finding is that the Nigerian media sample is not an exception to the rule. Some other findings, such as the increase in the coverage of international trade over the coverage of international politics and the prominence of coverage of gender issues, point to different interpretations of the coverage of international news in Nigeria. The post-cold war paradigms o...

Pravda's Coverage of Africa: 1990-1992: A Content Analysis.

This study uses a content analysis to examine the coverage of Africa by Pravda before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It focuses on the geographic emphasis, topic categories, and valence of coverage of three major regions of Africa — North Africa, sub‐Saharan Africa, and Southern Africa. It is the first study of Africas image in Independent Pravda after the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet empire. A significant finding of this study is the absence of ideological news. Thus, the patter n of coverage of Africa by Pravda in 1990 and 1992 was inconsistent with earlier studies which found that ideology was the dominant variable in Pravdas coverage of Africa or sub‐Saharan Africa. The study found a sharp decline in the number and volume of stories published in the 1992 sample in comparison with the 1990 sample. This may be r elated to Pravdas financial, ownership, and newsprint crises after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

International organizations, news sources, and sub‐Saharan Africa: A content analysis of Pravda, Izvestia, Trud, and Selskaya Zhizn, 1979–1987

This article reports research on news coverage of the activities of international organizations in sub‐Saharan Africa and the use of news agency sources by Pravda, lzvestfa, Trud, and Selskaya Zhizn from 1979 to 1987. The study found that all the dailies published more favorable than neutral news items and did not publish any unfavorable stories. The lions share of the coverage went to the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations. One West African regional economic organization, Economic Community of West African States, was mentioned once. The dailies tended to rely more on TASS (now ITAR‐Tass) as the major news source for coverage of activities of international organizations in the region. This study contributes to the limited scholarship on non‐Western media coverage of the activities of international organizations in sub‐Saharan Africa.