Geo-Politics of information dissemination in Nigeria: Emergence of Daily Trust and strive for information balance

Abstract

Chronicling the emergence of political media in Nigeria allows an appreciation of the intimate relationship that exists between the media and politics. Because of the influence that media exert on the politics of Nigeria, political actors strive to set up media outfit(s) that are sympathetic to their goals. By the use of documentary analysis and interview as an instrument of survey research, this paper generated data that explained media development in Nigeria and the subsequent information imbalance that emerged. The geopolitics of information dissemination in Nigeria created a huge gap in the information balance of the country, hence the demand for a newspaper that would represent the interests of the Northern states, which
was one of the major factors that led to the formation of the Daily Trust newspaper, as states in the Northern part of Nigeria are lagging in media activities. The paper also found that modern media in Nigeria started with the coming of missionaries. The fact that the early media outfits established in Nigeria were set up in the Southern states made the Northern states lag in the information balance of the country, hence the desperate desire to fill the gap and this led to the prominence that Daily Trust newspaper garnered within the short period of its existence. The paper recommends the need for citizens of Northern states to support the establishment of more media outfits like Daily Trust newspaper, as this would assist the securing their rights and privileges and place them in a better position in the intriguing Nigerian politics.