Introduction: This paper is anchored on the premise that the late take-off of Political Communication in Nigeria is partly due to the neglect of the discipline by the political architects of Nigeria, the nationalists and the British colonizing authorities. As at today, it is very rare to find scholarly
publications in which the architects of Nigeria ever discussed or prescribed political communication as one of the basic steps to nurture the new democracy at the time of independence. Yet, in the context of Perloff (2014:29) “democracy is political communication”. North (1967:301) on his part says “politics cannot exist without communication nor could wars be fought”. Through a case study approach the study found out
that none of the existing universities in Nigeria offers PhD programme in Political Communication and therefore suggested that interested universities in Nigeria should formally apply to the NUC requesting approval to formally mount the programme as part of strategic steps to strengthen the country’s nascent democracy. The study employed the World-System theory as well as Agenda - setting theory as theoretical poles.
Keyword: Political Communication, Democracy, Nation-Building.
Introduction: This paper is the outcome of a rigorous examination of notable print media that were visible online
in Nigeria on the professional application of Background Information in their reportage of news
stories, when COVID-19 broke out in 2019 in China and 2020 in Nigeria. This study is strongly
of the view that if the Nigerian press had professionally applied Background Information when
the pandemic broke out, with reference to similar occurrences in the past, especially the pandemic
of 1918, the response of the public would have been different when government rolled out
measures to contain the pandemic in Nigeria and the 3,053 deaths recorded in Nigeria from
COVID-19 could have been avoided. Using Agenda setting theory, as well as Uses and
gratifications theory of the press, as theoretical underpinning with historical methodological
approach, the paper found out that the newspapers failed their audiences due to their adherence
to the discredited 5Ws + H of reporting which is in vogue in Nigeria and therefore advocates the
need for the press to embrace the 3D dimension of news reporting which makes it mandatory for
the media to provide comprehensive background information by probing the who behind the who,
the what behind the what, and the why behind the why, as well as the how behind the how.