PEACE JOURNALISM: A STRATEGY FOR CREATING SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

, , , ,Nigeria is a multi-ethnic nation with over 250 ethnic groups with different cultural and religious backgrounds which hinder peaceful co existence in the society. This study was conducted toestablish the role of peace journalism as a strategy for creating sustainable peace inNigeria. The study is situated on the tenets of the social responsibility theory while the secondary sources of data were relied upon for analysis.The study revealed that the role of peace journalism as a strategy for co-creating sustainable peace in Nigeria involves exploring the backgrounds and contexts of conflict formation, causes and options on every side,giving a voice to the views of all rival parties to be heard, creating ideas for conflict resolution as well as exposing lies, cover-up attempts and culprits on both sides as well as the damages caused by both parties.Despite this all-important role in co-creating sustainable peace, peace journalism is challenged by lack of readership/viewership for peace stories, reluctance by journalists on the grounds that the media should be objective, resource constraints, safety of peace journalists is notguaranteed as well as hostile sources.The study concludes that Nigeria as a country iscurrently faced with issues of Boko -Haram, farmer-herderclashes, bandits’ activities and kidnapping on daily basis, the need to restore peace is imperative hence the relevance of peace journalism to achieve this purpose. The study thus recommends that peace journalism should be encouraged among media houses in Nigeria for enhanced peaceful-co-existence.Media houses in Nigeria should organize workshops with a view to reminding practising journalists to adopt objectivity as a hallmark of journalism, media houses in Nigeria should acquire drones to enhance the practice of peace journalism as this would further ensure the safety of peace journalists on the field and sources with credible information should be allowed to speak on the basis of anonymity since they are not always willing to speak to the press for security reasons..