CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
This research touches on the various aspects of radio programmes as instruments of national development. In other words, it explores into radio programmes as a mobilization agency during the political transition period. It is thus, an important assumption of the work that a systematic study of national development by radio programmes should include an examination and the nature of operation of the mass media of communication in Radio Nigeria, Abuja. The mass media generally referred to both the print(s) and electronic media as supported in section 22 of the 1989 constitution of Nigeria. The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media should at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives and highlights the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.
The role of radio programmes according to General Abacha in his maiden independence broadcast on the 1st October 1995 was to unform, educate and entertain the citizen. Onyishi (1996) while highlighting on the role of radio programmes in democracy notes that the press not only sustains the democracy principles but also end with transaction period. The media should help an ushering in democracy they should play a crucial role in nurturing and sustaining the success or failure of our practice of democratic government. To large extent, their success depends on how well radio programmes carries out their function as the mid wife of democracy. This research therefore is intended to investigate how far the radio programme had fulfilled this allowed obligation. It is hoped that the result of the work will be useful to media practitioners in the proper performance of their duties.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEMS
In democracies, the mass media are the watch dog of the people. The citizens are usually mobilized and unformed to create awareness on the political culture. By political culture, I refer to a system of politic in which sovereignty is vested on the people rather than a small clique, or an oligarchy, a political arrangement that places emphasis on the accountability of polity where the rule of law, majority rule and constitutionalism is the basic guiding principle. Perhaps, it could be argued that the political crisis that pervaded our recent past points to the fact that most of our people are ignorant of an apathetic towards the country’s observe that in Nigeria electioneering and voting pattern cannot be validated, in the voting pattern of Nigerians and the possible estimation of the voter attitude towards political