AN ASSESSMENT OF MASS MEDIA AND THE MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The political entity called Nigeria has continued since independence under one form to the other. Especially with military rulers who have had to be rule through decrees thus suspending the constitution that guarantees the citizenry their fundamental human rights, Ellinas, A. (2010). It there makes it obvious that the basis for government, which is for the ultimate good of the people, is defeated when their rights are not guaranteed. And indeed authoritarian rule has not helped human right issues, as abuse has been recorded time and again even in the mass media bizarre manner.

This is where the mass media comes into focus , as through it, the government and the governed are better be informed about their various privileges and limitation as it is entrenched in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, albeit only under a democratically elected government. For a society that it’s citizens cannot be guaranteed the protection of their fundamental human rights cannot be said to be free in the real sense of the word, Cohen-Almagor, R. (2001).

The mass media has always been a channel through which human right abuses has been exposed to the public. But there are times human right abuses have been quite intractable for the mass media to manage either due to tribal or religious sentiment or outright ownership interference, Henny, L. (2012). In such cases, the citizens whose rights have been abuses are unfortunately given the short end of the stick. The mass media should be able to effectively manage the issues of human right abuses as they unfold in the society Henny, L. (2012). Considering the fact that they most times set the agenda for public discourse. They should in the process to be able distinguish what should be known and what should not be known. Expect in that case, they want to leave the role of agenda setting to the government; which is this case means that the people are indolent and as Plato stressed “they look up to the leaders of the state to say what goes”. Despite the inability of the mass media to at times manage human right abuses in Nigeria, they have at other times pre – empted the activities of human right groups in the past, thus, leading to clampdown on members of the groups, Henny, L. (2012).