Discerning journalists’ view on national security %%%%%%%%%

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A review of Hassan Ya’u’s book, Perception of National Security among journalists by Aondover Eric Msughter.
The research paper on the Perceptions of National Security among Journalists by Hassan A. Ya’u, captured important issues on national security. The paper identified the key philosophy of national security which is to safeguard the territorial integrity of nations and to prepare them for emergencies. The author articulated that national security is a concept that is championed and advanced by governments to protect the state and its citizens against all forms of national and international crises through the means of power projection.

The author operationalised some key concepts that have direct bearing on the subject matterlike awareness, knowledge and understanding which were indeed conceptualised within the context of the study. The socio-economic and political factors for security challenges in Kano State were given due cognisance as well as the economic activity of the Kano people. Among the notable activities of the Kano people is farming which is usually practiced during rainy and dry seasons as articulated by the author. Agriculture remains the pre-occupation of the people which is restricted to food crops, like guinea corn, millet, beans, cassava, maize, rice, sweet potatoes to mention but a few.

It is established in the paper that farming and industrialisation are combined to make Kano an economically buoyant environment which motivated people from Niger Republic, Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso etc. to come to Kano for commercial and social interaction. The author pointed out that Kano became an emirate under the Sokoto caliphate, in concomitant to the success of the jihadist in Kano. The paper maintained that before the jihad, Islam existed only in name. That Islamic law or Sharia was not fully practiced which made it difficult if not impossible to find a Hausa ruler performing the daily Islamic practice while at the same time keeping talisman (his saviour).

As far as the jihadist scholars were concerned, the Hausa rulers at that time were unbelievers because they turned against the way of God and raised the worldly banner above that of Islam. This escalated the philosophy of the jihad in Kano which was the desire to return to the original Islam and to strictly observe its custom and traditions as well as its divine legal system as documented by the author.

The author also traced the historical antecedent of national security, which according to him was originated from the work of Thomas Hobbes in 1651. After its introduction in the United State after World War II, this to some extent replaced other concepts that describe the struggle of state to overcome various external and internal threats. The elements of national security, military security, political security, economic security and cyber-security were examined by the author as well as transnational conceptualization of national security across countries and continents.

The link between national security and the mass media in Nigeria were integrated which connotes the media in Nigeria is constantly being accused of undermining national security. The connections or the interlock between the previous studies and the current study was harnessed, including the lacuna in the literature ranging from conceptual, empirical and theoretical investigation especially in the multicultural and cosmopolitan area like Kano.

The study anchored on the theoretical paradigm of the Social Construction of Reality which was originated in the work of Berger and Luckman in (1967) among others. The assumption of the theory as well as its relevance to the study was givendue consideration.The study adopted social survey as the primary approach of data generation. A population of 380 registered journalists in Kano as at January 2016 was considered for the study, while a sample of 123 journalists was sampled and a proportional sample was drawn using Krejcie’s and Morgan’s formula.

The findings of the study revealed that 56.1per cent of journalists in Kano have an elementary or undifferentiated consciousness on national security issues. The study also discovered that only 1.6percent of journalists are knowledgeable on national security, which shows that the psychological thinking and reasoning about national security among journalists in Kano is low. By and large, 1.6per cent of journalists in Kano also understand the concept of national security to the largest extentas shown in the study. The outcome of the study corroborates the previous studies like that of Akpan (1988); Ibelema (2003); and Olalekan (2013) who found frequent and substantial unprofessional and unethical practices among journalists and argue that they contribute in jeopardizing national security as a result of low awareness on national security.

The paper concluded that there is a low awareness, knowledge and understanding of the concept of national security among journalists in Kano as only 1.6percent acknowledged that non-military variables are components of national security. Recommendations were also drawn from the paper that the replication of the study in different parts of Nigeria and using different methodological approaches can, and will enrich available literature in the area.

The language employed by the author is not too hard and the words are used to a great advantage. It is to the credit of the author that the simplicity of language and subject matter did nothing to reduce the theme ofthe discussion. The paragraphing of the paper is another thing worthputting intoconsideration; the paragraphs are well arranged with an excellent flow of ideas. Above all, grammatical rules were carefully observed as well as appropriate methodology and theoretical discuss which in a way expanded the fraction of literature on the area. However, lack of empirical review within the local context (Nigeria) discredits the paper. Moreover reliance on one scholar on page 136 where Okoye (2007) is over cited also constitute the pitfall of the paper, which I hope the author will take note in his subsequent publications.

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