Nigeria’s Federal Government owns four major media agencies meant to project its activity, but none has been effective in the ring for over a decade, during which the negative narrative on insecurity has trended. These agencies under the Ministry of Information include Nigerian Television Authority, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, News Agency of Nigeria, and Voice of Nigeria. In all those years, some private media stations animatedly but erroneously projected it that only a set of religionists was the victim of insecurity, and promoted the wrong impression that only Fulani people committed every crime in the South-West, North-Central, and South-East zones. High-profile figures made similar claims in interviews. Talk show hosts referenced North-Central as the only location where insecurity happened. In that period, I pointed out here and online the conscious stigmatisation and brought media platforms that persistently profile Fulani people to the attention of the diplomatic community in Nigeria. Meanwhile, relevant FG ministries, departments, and other agencies were quiet in the face of incomplete narratives.
The situation was so bad that last year, even the current Information Minister stood alone in defending the FG when a claim of “genocide” of only one set of religionists was made. And he got his facts wrong when he accused foreigners of pushing a genocide narrative overseas. Actually, Nigerians who had vowed to seek foreign intervention initiated it. But no FG media agencies recorded this fact or called the Minister’s attention to it. If the chief spokesperson didn’t get his information right, how would he effectively counter false narratives? Also, President Bola Tinubu got no help from these agencies when he rejected the genocide allegation; yet these were agencies he funded collectively with N67.2bn in 2025. Now, FG has allocated more funds to entities in the US to state the complex nature of insecurity in Nigeria. Before then, non-state actors had lobbied in the US to have their own genocide narrative accepted; so, FG wasn’t only late to the scene, but it was hardly believed.
How do non-state actors make the government struggle in a situation where evidence abounds that insecurity doesn’t affect just one religion, and diverse actors perpetrate criminality? In parts of the north, violence began with a struggle between herders and farmers over land and water resources. Many international organisations have come here to hold conferences, proffering solutions to herder-farmer challenges. But genocide campaigners later claimed there was never a herder-farmer issue. Meanwhile, different groups took the law into their own hands. There’s evidence that the two sides involved eventually raised armed militias. Reprisal attacks happen in some places. A former state governor admitted this, stating that leaders of Fulani elements involved in acts of banditry were dealt with by security agencies over the years. He added that the other side “quietly kill so-called ‘settlers’” but “shout ‘genocide’ when retaliation by their victims” occurred. He means reprisals happen, but some deny it.
Reprisal attacks occur in some locations in the north-central. Here, as everywhere else, there’s banditry, kidnapping, violent communal clashes, especially. This is the complex nature of insecurity here, but mainstream media didn’t project it. I visited trouble spots, and I wrote about communal clashes that mainstream media platforms wouldn’t report because they didn’t fit into their Fulani-herder-kills-farmer narrative. From 2015, I regularly referenced here how some ethnic nationalities publicly vowed not to work with the FG over insecurity but sought foreign interventions instead. They lobbied the then-new US administration from 2016 over what they called “religious persecution”. They got it sanctioned in 2020, only for the sanctions to be overturned in 2021 by the next US administration. By 2025, Nigerians travelled to the US to make presentations to the US lawmakers, this time alleging “genocide”. The current US administration then threatened to sanction Nigeria. That was when state officials who were previously silent began to speak up against the wrong narrative about insecurity. And when the US imposed a visa ban, and the impact of the incomplete narrative hit each citizen, many in the media space who were previously silent because of their ethnic and religious biases began to say insecurity was a general problem. They suddenly woke up to what I had been stating here and online for over a decade.
Recently, the diverse causes of insecurity in the north-central were further shown by Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwang. In an interview, he explained how the latest May killings in Plateau involved the activity of artisanal miners and the armed robbers who attacked to steal their gems. There was also a news report about the killing of chiefs in a community by some community members who were later caught. One suspect said they shouted “Allahu Akbar” whenever they carried out an act of violence, to make people think it was done by Fulani people. These facts are online even though genocide campaigners and some reporters always blame all violent acts on “suspected Fulani herdsmen”, just as some prominent personalities blamed the Fulani people for the 2022 Ondo State church attacks. But the arrested culprits later turned out to have names such as Omeiza, common among a tribe in Kogi State.
That campaigners and private media platforms promote erroneous narratives on insecurity isn’t the only challenge for the government. That FG-owned media platforms have watched for over a decade, while such a narrative fester is another.
If NTA has any issues, it shouldn’t include missing in the ring when it comes to defending the government with respect to the insecurity narrative. The same applies to all FG media agencies. Past Information Ministers and past Directors-General of these agencies didn’t pay close attention to this gap. NTA, especially, should be at the forefront of properly establishing facts as they relate to diverse attacks. All four media agencies should have been more aggressive in this regard, more so as they have the resources and the reach to go into places where attacks happen and gather information.
It’s worth pointing out that NTA once creditably did this in the southern parts of Kaduna State some years back. At the time, NTA was on the team of the then state governor, and it was the only news outlet which reported that over 70 Fulani people were slaughtered in a remote Fulani settlement. I commended NTA then. The station should have made it a policy to report exactly who attacked whom, who suffered what, particularly in the North-Central. Failure to do this makes many Nigerians and foreigners assume every violent act is by Fulani herders, which isn’t true. If herders attack communities, if farming communities attack herders in revenge (some communities admitted this and I cited such in the past); if bandits kidnap, if two local ethnic groups attack each other, NTA should have reported accurately with evidence. If the station did this over the years, the FG wouldn’t have struggled denying the genocide allegation. A compilation of previous reports on attacks on Muslims, Fulani, and people of other tribes would have been done to help the FG’s case with foreign governments.
Again, to its credit, NTA factually reported the latest May killings in Plateau involving illegal miners and armed robbers. Some patriotic Nigerians online picked up this news item by NTA and copied the US lawmakers who alleged genocide and pushed for sanctions against Nigeria. This is an example of how NTA and its sister government media platforms could have positively influenced the insecurity narrative. If they had done their job by finding out, and accurately reporting the who, where and why of each attack in an environment such as the north-central, President Tinubu wouldn’t have been in a situation where foreign opinion was so hugely skewed against the government. This gap on the part of FG-owned media platforms is something the information minister and NTA’s director-general should look into.
FG media platforms should be programmed such that they’re proactive, able to identify and report occurrences that can, now and in the future, impact the image of Nigeria. There should have been special reports and documentaries that explained at length the complex dynamics of insecurity. Administrations come and go. But the information government media agencies gather in real time would always be there to guide and assist officials in their efforts to present the true situation of things in the country. It’s in the national interest that they do evidence-based reporting and put it out there. This can help the government counter divisive narratives that stigmatise one ethnic group or religion, making the other side appear like the only victims of insecurity. All FG media platforms should focus on it.
Read the full article here
