Editors And The Missing Part Of Uzodimma’s Trust Story – By Azu Ishiekwene

WHEN I saw the programme for the 2025 Nigerian Guild of Editors annual conference listing Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, as the keynote speaker, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Uzodimma has been in the press mainly for the wrong reasons.

As one of Nigeria’s leading journalists and public intellectuals, Reuben Abati said on a recent TV morning programme, the Imo State governor appears to govern more from the presidential villa in Abuja than from the Government House in Owerri.

Often, he is at the top of the line at the airport in Abuja to welcome or see off President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He gives the impression, at best, that he’s underworked and overpaid, and, at worst, that he is the henchman for the ruling party’s conquest of the Southeast. But it gets even more complicated.

In September, an Owerri-based lawyer, Chinedu Agu, was arrested and arraigned before a magistrates’ court in Owerri on allegations of “cyberstalking, defamation of character, and inciting civic disturbances and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.”

Agu had denied any wrongdoing, insisting that he had only written articles criticising the Imo State government and comparing the governor’s performance with that of his counterpart in Enugu.

Under Nigeria’s current cyberstalking law, however, cyberstalking can be defined as the accuser claims it is. And if that accuser is a person of influence, then the accused is in trouble. It’s worse if it’s a government. Cybercrime is a serious problem, but no less serious is the abuse of the law to silence critics. As of 2024, at least 25 journalists had faced prosecution under the Cybercrimes Act before the reform. Yet, reform or not, Agu was recently detained without charge for one month, according to his lawyers, at the behest of the Imo State Government.

Under this cloud of controversy, inviting Uzodimma to give a keynote speech at the editors’ conference seemed like either a soft landing or a trap. Whichever it was, it was fraught with ominous signs.

If the purpose was to entrap him, it failed. Like a mouse familiar with the locations of the snares by the houseowner, the governor escaped with significant portions of the bait, leaving the hall full of editors bemused. Uzodimma turned the tables.

Rather than speaking directly on the topic, “Democratic Governance and National Cohesion: The Role of Editors,” and the subtheme, “Electoral Integrity and Trust Deficit, What Nigerians Expect in 2027,” he modified it into a single topic: “2027: Editors as Catalyst of Democracy, National Cohesion and Electoral Integrity.”

That was uncomfortable. After saying nice things about how the pen is mightier than the sword and how we all might be in a handcart to hell but for journalists shining the light, the sort of thing in Aesop’s fable about the sick lion and the animals, he dropped the bomb.

He said, half-jesting, that he thought the conference theme had been intentionally framed to dump responsibility for national cohesion at the doorsteps of government, and teased editors for trying to escape accountability for electoral processes and outcomes.

His job, however, was not only to remind journalists that that was a ruse but, more importantly, to make the point that they could neither escape accountability nor pass the buck.

With a political career spanning over 30 years, during which he has been a member of virtually all major political parties, including being the youth leader of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), member of General Sani Abacha’s United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and now the All Progressives Congress (APC), Uzodimma has many scars to show for his encounters with journalists.

After losing the PDP governorship primaries to Achike Udenwa in 2003, he decamped to the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and contested again, but lost to Udenwa. He lost the PDP governorship primaries to Senator Ifeanyi Ararume in 2006. Five years later, he emerged as Senator representing Imo West for eight years.

But perhaps his most telling encounter with the press was in 2019, when, after coming in fourth place in the governorship election that year, the Supreme Court ruled that Emeka Ihedioha was not elected with the majority of the lawful votes; that 213,295 votes from 388 polling units in favour of Uzodimma had been unlawfully excluded.

The press severely criticised the Supreme Court, and for a long time, the governor was the butt of jokes among journalists, who derided him as the Eighth Wonder of the Supreme Court.

The wound may have healed, especially after the governor won a second term, but the scars are not easily forgotten. The heart of Uzodimma’s keynote is the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, which, according to him, indicates that only 51 percent of Nigerians trust the media.

“It means,” he said, “that nearly half of Nigerians, 49 percent, actively distrust the media,” compared with 71 percent who trust in NGOs, 66 percent who trust in businesses.

The danger, according to the governor, is that while Nigerians trust NGOs, many of which are foreign-funded and may have agenda significantly different from, and even hostile to, the country’s national interest; and even trust corporations that may put profit before the public good, they have relatively lower levels of trust in media and government (35 percent), both vital institutions that exist for the greater public good.

Then he spoke about how journalists, through their choices and framing of stories, have contributed to declining levels of participation in elections, the negative perception of electoral outcomes – even before the results have been officially announced – and the weakening of social cohesion and loss of confidence in government and politicians.

If trust is broken, electoral integrity is undermined, and confidence in politicians and public institutions is eroded, it’s mainly because journalists, in this case, Nigerian journalists, have hypocritically blamed everyone else but themselves.

This was music in the ear of politicians, who mostly erupted in applause and laughter, but a body blow to journalists who grinned or raised uncomfortable eyebrows across the hall.

Uzodimma was right about the need for the media to take a long, hard look at itself. On the matter of trust, however, the facts are more nuanced than were portrayed in the governor’s paper.

While trust in public institutions and the media has declined worldwide, the level of public trust in Nigeria’s media has increased significantly since 2021, reaching not only its highest point so far but also the highest in the world.

This might sound like a convenient alternative fact, except that it’s not. It’s the outcome of the 2025 study by the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report. According to the study reported in the Premium Times, based on a sample of 100,000 respondents surveyed online in 48 markets, including Nigeria, 68 percent of Nigerians still trust the media.

It’s the highest in the world, followed by Finland with 67 percent; Hungary and Greece have the lowest media trust at 22 percent. The report also noted some improvements in the press freedom index, a measure of mostly external impediments to journalism practices.

These facts do not suggest it’s a time for complacency or that the gains are irreversible. I’m also not shopping for data to dress up journalism, a craft that leaves me with a heavy heart daily. We could – and should – do a lot more to rebuild trust, respect, and ethical standards.

It would, however, be a disservice to facts not to plug the gap in the governor’s keynote.