Media Propaganda and Nation Building: A Comparative Study of "Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television” (RTLM) and Radio Biafra

Abstract

The paper critically examines the influence of media propaganda towards nation building, using Nigeria and Rwanda as a comparative case study. However, the essay focuses more on the aspect of radio propaganda, using both Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television (Rwanda) and Radio Biafra (Nigeria).Radio propaganda has in recent times, proven to be one of the most effective ways through which conflicting parties spread information across their sympathizers. The RTLM has been widely regarded by many as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility that sustained the genocide of 1994 which claimed the lives of many people. The broadcast of KantanoHabimana cannot be said to have been in line with the tenets of nation building. At present, the radio propaganda strategy has in recent time been employed by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) through an established radio station called Radio Biafra which was founded by the government of defunct Republic of Biafra and has been reignited at the instance of NnamdiKanu, leader of IPOB in 2015; with the intention of transmitting information about the conditions of the Biafran in Nigeria to fellow Igbo domiciled in Nigeria and abroad. Upon critical examination, the essay expresses the view that there exist a thin line between what the RTLM did back then in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide and what Radio Biafra is practicing in its quest for secession from the Nigerian state. This essay, therefore, sees the activities of Radio Biafra as a déjí  vu which possesses the capacity to plunge the Nigerian state into another round of conflict that might bring about turmoil and anguish.  In Conclusion, the paper avers that the Radio Biafra, just like the RTLM is a very powerful propagandist tool which if left unchecked, has the potency of crippling what is left as peace in a "United Nigeria” and poses grave danger to nation building.