Washington, DC — Since Friday's bombing of the National Pilot weekly newspaper in Ilorin, capital of Nigeria's northern Kwara state, the governor and the paper's publisher have traded allegations about who is responsible.
Dr. Bukola Saraki, who launched the paper four months ago, called the attack "state terrorism against the press." The bomb brought down the roof of the building housing the paper's offices and printing facilities and injured five people, one seriously. Destruction of its plant has not prevented the staff from bringing out this week's paper, thanks to assistance from other media, including This Day in Lagos, which printed Monday's issue.
Kwara Governor Muhammed Lawal, a political rival of Saraki's father, former senator Dr. Olusola Saraki, said the bombing was "a self-inflicted attack" aimed at discrediting his administration. Lawal, in a press conference Sunday at Government House, pointed out the presence of the Saraki father and son in Ilorin shortly before the blast. "The coincidence is just too much for me," he said. In recent months, as political violence has escalated in the state, Lawal has made numerous accusations that his opponents are stockpiling weapons or planning attacks on officials.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, in a weekend "media chat" on national television, promised a police investigation that would not shrink from identifying culprits, even at the highest levels of government. He advised the governor to leave the investigation to the police rather than conducting his own inquiry, but Lawal refused, saying he had the right and the responsibility to keep order in his own state.
AllAfrica talked about the incident with the paper's owner, Bukola Saraki, executive vice-chairman of Societe Generale Bank (Nigeria Limited), who is in London.
Why do you call the incident an attack on the press by the state?
The paper was started only about four months ago and has already become the number one selling newspaper in the state. The government hasn't liked some of its reporting and has directed civil servants not to be seen buying or reading the newspaper. He had publicly accused the staff of the newspaper of trying to assassinate the vice president.
In the last edition, a front-page story was about a petition that individuals from all the local governments were circulating, [calling for] an anti-corruption probe against Lawal for misappropriation of funds. Subsequently, government officials visited the paper to try to induce them to provide copies of the petition, to try to find out more about it. They threatened the lives of the editor and others for not cooperating. Then this bomb was planted on the premises, timed to go off at noon -- at the height of its production as a weekly paper that comes out every Monday.
What prompted the paper's launch?
With the coming of this present governor, the local paper was converted to a mouthpiece for the government. Circulation dropped, and people were looking for alternatives. We did a survey that showed that some of the Lagos newspapers had begun to pick up market share locally, because people didn't feel the paper was objective. So this was partly a business opportunity. And also those of us who have businesses out of the state, who spend a lot of time out of the state -- there've always been issues of what we bring back. So some of us felt there was need to begin to invest in the state.
I was approached by a group of people who had been involved in newspapers locally, who wanted to establish an independent paper and needed someone to finance it. They wanted a partner who would have the patience to nurture a paper through its early stages, who would see the long-term view.
We have a lot of good people from the state in the media sector; we tried to recruit the very best we could within the state. In a short period of time, we've become a paper that people want to buy. The second the paper ceases to play that role, it will run into the same problem that the state government newspaper has run into now. Circulation will stop growing and start to fall.
But what's happened is a worrying thing, both from a short-term and a long-term view. This kind of violence has far-reaching negative implications for our ability to work with global partners.
How so?
I got back a couple of weeks ago from a meeting with the UN Secretary-General and the team for UN participation in the private sector. There is agreement on all sides that as long as we have a question mark on transparency, or a question mark on proper governance, we're not going to get the support from donor bodies to facilitate and improve our people.
Our argument was that, given that circumstance, there is a need for the UN to look beyond the normal approach in a country like ours. With Nepad (the New Partnership for Africa's Development) coming into play, and a majority of private-sector donors stipulating conditions to facilitate new investment, and the new fund being raised by the U.S. government [Millennium Challenge Account] stipulating what recipient governments must achieve in terms of transparencies -- if a country like Nigeria exhibits lack of transparency and poor governance, it will be deprived of the aid it requires.
My view is that the UN needs to look more to the private sector. We have examples of private-sector institutions and individuals who are providing support to help the community. It's not necessarily structured, but many are spending a lot of money in their communities.
There are a lot of private sector people in Nigeria who would like to work with the international private sector and with the United Nations. We ourselves are prepared to contribute into a fund that could be managed jointly. That would give confidence to some of the donors that Nigerians are not just taking.
My concern is that a lot of money is being spent by the UN and other agencies, but very few people in the community can say, "This is the local impact of some of these donor funds." The only way to get that sort of impact is through participation with Nigerians. And that can only happen if there is a closer relationship between some of those international agencies and the Nigerian private sector, where there may be better transparency and better ethics, which will meet with their own requirements.
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We're trying to come up with mechanisms that will appeal to the private sector and that can allow us to begin to rethink how we implement some of our projects in developing countries. It's a long way to go yet, but Africa is going to lag more and more behind other parts of the world. Why would a serious investor want funds to go there, particularly if violence of the sort we have seen in Kwara continues?
Whereas if elements of the private sector say, "I'm prepared to invest my own funds in my own community, but I need partners in both finance and capacity building to assist us," we may find willing partners. I know, for example, in my state, my father invested a lot in women, in providing funds to assist women in businesses, in cottage industries.
And not only him. A lot of people have been doing this across the county, but it has gone unnoticed internationally, because it's local. It's not formal; it's not well managed. There are a lot of inefficiencies. But if agencies that already have the infrastructure to support that kind of activity can partner with this kind of individual or with local businesses, then I think we'll see more effectiveness in improving the socio-economic environment of some of our people in the rural areas.
Dr. Bukola Saraki is an investor in AllAfrica Global Media.
