Abstract

Corruption remains one of the most significant global issues in the 21st century, hence, its inclusion in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In Nigeria, corruption is a central problem facing the government and one of the bureaucratic offices that massive scales of corruption thrive, is the agricultural sector. Recognizing the conferral and agenda setting status of the media, this research investigated the coverage of Agricultural Related Corrupt Practices (ARCPs) in Nigerian national newspapers. Using content analysis as methodology and multi-stage sampling procedure, four (4) national newspapers and four hundred and thirty two (432) editions from which 71 qualified as ARCPs news were selected for the study between January 2010 and December 2015. Results show inter-newspaper variation in the coverage of ARCPs stories. Vanguard Newspapers (34.4%) was found to have reported the highest volume of ARCPs stories amongst the dailies. No stories were found on either the back pages or editorial pages of the newspapers studied, which represent a lack of ideological inclinations of the newspapers on burning national issues. The majority (98.6%) of the news reports were found on the inside pages. The typology of ARCPs most reported were items grouped as “others” (33.8%) but silent on bigger issues of corruption like misappropriation, bribery, embezzlement and extortion. The major source of news reports was found to be government functionaries (36.6%), superseding anti-corruption agencies like the like Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (2.8%). There was no significant difference (F= 1.294, P= 0.284) in the occurrence of stories on ARCPs across the dailies. To effectively address corruption and agricultural underdevelopment, a robust reportage of bigger ARCPs around bribery and corruption will no doubt translate to awareness, responsiveness and accountability in the administration of agricultural programmes and policies.

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