The Nigerian press and the challenge of private newspaper ownership: A study of the Nigerian Tribune, 1949-2009

Beyond playing its major role of informing, educating and entertaining, the press in different contexts, cultures and dispensations remains a major propaganda tool, and hence its use and abuse by proprietors, political and government elites, and people of influence in society. The clamour to establish and sustain a newspaper or a chain of publications becomes understandable even when the challenges are great. Whereas the desire to promote vibrant nationalism, challenge autocracy in different forms, or pursue a cause that the proprietor strongly believes in could be central to the founding of a newspaper, the use to which it is put - which oftentimes could be the hidden motive for its establishment or a manifestation of the derailment of the original purposes - has provoked interest in probing the motives for newspaper ownership. As the oldest surviving privately owned newspaper in Nigeria, the Nigerian Tribune (NT) provides a classic example of how newspapers come to serve a common cause while at the same time projecting the personal ambitions and interests of their founders. This article examines the challenges of private newspaper ownership in