With a population of about 140 million people, one in every five Africans is a Nigerian. Twenty-three percent of this population is made up of women of child bearing age while 20 percent of children are less than five years of age. From available statistics one million under-five children die every year making Nigeria to account for 10 percent of global deaths.
Also, 52,900 women die annually from pregnancy-related complications out of the global figure of 529,000. In addition, every hour six women die, the same way 117 children die within the same period. A woman’s chance of dying from pregnancy and childbirth in Nigeria is 1 in 13. Nigeria is the 10th largest country in the world with a crude bi
rth rate 41.7 per 1000 and total fertility rate of 5.7 according to 2003 statistics. Worse still, Nigeria is ranking second in global Under-5 mortality.
The media has a duty to women and children because of the unacceptable high rate of maternal mortality rate and Under-5 mortality rate due to weak health system and low coverage of mother, newborn and child healthcare.
Traditionally and by obligation, the media has critical roles of social, economic and political development to perform in national development. Even though the media organically performs these three roles, it is only the first (social) that it performs without quantitative rewards but rather it gets reprisals. Unfortunately, because of the reward element associated with economic and political functions, the social aspect is not usually given the desired attention it requires. But it is the social aspect that is the fulcrum on which the other two variables revolve “the development of the human capital “the child. The obligation of the media goes beyond role expectation and assumptions and the attendant blame game when role expectations and assumptions fail. Also, the issue of importance and concern for all stakeholders is the capacity of the media to fulfill this role expectation and deliver the expected services to the satisfaction of all intended beneficiaries.
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The issue of capacity would be better appreciated in a framework of analysis that situates the roles, value expectation and result in an analytical frame capable of creating directional process, value and intended beneficiaries indicators.
In this regard, the role of the media can be examined in the context of a child’s cocktail of rights. The first right of the child is the right to life and survival. This poses an enormous challenge to the media largely due to the level of socio-economic formation of the Nigerian society – illiteracy and poverty.
This stage requires extensive advocacy for: good health for pregnant mothers; sustainable advocacy for survival through immunisation, healthy maternal practice; protection against early childhood diseases; insecticide treated nets, and exclusive breast-feeding for the first six months.
The second right of the child is the right to development. The Millennium Development Goals has a standard for minimum level of education, medicare, family and state must provide for the child’s development. The role of the media here goes beyond the watchdog role to benchmarking and country pair review advocacy on the dangers of low and poor human capital development both to the individual household units and the state at large.
The third right of the child is the right to protection. The child needs to be protected from all forms of abuse, abuse that threatens his physical, mental and psychological development and well-being. Protection should be geared towards making the child an active participant of his society.
We believe the level of socio-economic formation of the Nigerian family supports total child protection because we are dealing with universal average and not particular specifics; particularly within the context of development and under-development. Therefore, protection should aim at achieving the universal average or standard.
We also believe the media’s systematic and sustained advocacy is required for policy change or reinforcement to actualize and implement the Child Rights Act. This is particularly important considering that there are states in the federation that still do not think it is necessary to ratify the Child Rights Act.
In conclusion, we urge the Nigerian media to rise to the challenge of protecting and advancing the interests of society’s weakest as represented by women and children.
