Press

Historically, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 has boasted the most free and outspoken press of any African country, but also one which has consistently been the target of harassment by the past military dictatorships and now under the governance of Nigeria's former civilian president, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was the President of Nigeria and the 13th Head of State. He served as governor of Katsina State in northern Nigeria from 29 May 1999 to 28 May 2007. He was declared the winner of the controversial Nigerian presidential election held on 21 April 2007, and was sworn in on 29 May...

. Many agents of Nigeria's press have been imprisoned, exiled, tortured, or murdered as a result, among them being Ogoni activist and television producer Ken Saro-Wiwa

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro Wiwa was a Nigerian author, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize...

, who was executed for treason by order of the Sani Abacha

Sani Abacha

General Sani Abacha was a Nigerian military leader and politician. A Kanuri from Borno by tribe, he was born and brought up in Kano, Nigeria. He was the de facto President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998....

 dictatorship in 1995 (resulting in the expulsion of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 and sanctions from abroad).

Even under the somewhat less-oppressive current civilian government, journalists have continued to come under fire, be it from the government (as with the June 2006 arrest of Gbenga Aruleba and Rotimi Durojaiye of African Independent Television under charges of sedition) or from other popular establishments (such as the self-imposed exile of Thisday

Thisday

THISDAY is a Nigerian national newspaper. It is the flagship newspaper of Leaders & Company Ltd and was first published on 22 January 1995. It has its headquarters in Apapa, Lagos, Lagos State....

's Isioma Daniel

Isioma Daniel

Isioma Nkemdilim Nkiruka Daniel is a Nigerian journalist whose 2002 newspaper article comment involving the Islamic prophet Muhammad sparked major religious riots and caused a fatwa to be issued on her life.-The 2002 Nigeria riots:...

 following the riots in Northern Nigeria over "sensitive comments" which she had made in an article regarding Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 and the 2002 Miss World

Miss World

The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...

 pageant; a fatwa

Fatwa

A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...

 calling for her beheading was issued by the mullahs of northern Nigeria, but was declared null and void by the relevant religious authorities in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

, and the Obasanjo faced an international public relations smearing [especially within journalistic circles) in the aftermath, which was not helped by the Amina Lawal

Amina Lawal

Amina Lawal Kurami is a Nigerian woman. On March 22, 2002, an Islamic Sharia court sentenced her to death by stoning for adultery and for conceiving a child out of wedlock...

 controversy which had occurred prior to the riots, which had seen over 200 dead). However, as with most other countries, blogging has increasingly become a much safer, and much easier, conduit for Nigeria's growing Internet-enabled minority to express their dissatisfactions with the current state of affairs in Nigeria.

Radio and Television

On the other hand, while newspapers (and, most recently, blogging) have long thrived through both thick and thin in Nigeria, radio and television has not received as much recognition, due to limited resources and press restrictions which beset the establishment of radio or television services in Nigeria. However, such limitations are being worked around in order to reach larger audiences both within and without Nigeria, such as with the growth of satellite television (which has long been preferred throughout the African continent due to the infavourability, geologically and financially, of laying ground cables). The BBC World Service

BBC World Service

The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

 as well as the Voice of America and the German broadcasting organization Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle or DW, is Germany's international broadcaster. The service is aimed at the overseas market. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio on 98.7 DZFE in 30 languages . It has a satellite television service , that is available in four languages, and...

 (DW) also provide shortwave radio in the Hausa language

Hausa language

Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...

.

Internet sites

Virtually all Nigerian newspapers have an internet presence; in addition, there are several websites which are dedicated to allowing Nigerians to air their opinions on a variety of topics. However, the current low penetration of the internet in Nigeria means that radio and newspapers remain the primary means of consuming information in the country.