| Abstract: |
Nigeria has had image problem over the years. It was in the guest to redeem the battered image of the country that the Federal Ministry of Information and Communications in 2009 began a campaign which the then minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili said "signals the march towards national re-birth". The campaign was intended to por¬tray the country positively before the international community by correcting the miscon-ceptions and erroneous beliefs held about the country locally and internationally. How¬ever, on Friday, August 26, 2011, a suicide bomber bombed the United Nations building in Abuja, the nation’s capital. The blasts which the radical Boko Haram sect claimed responsibility, destroyed several floors of the building, killing at least 18 personsand injuring 48 others of different nationalities. This single act immediately drew theattention of the world to Nigeria as an unsafeplace for foreigners. This study analyses newspaper coverage of the act and the image implications. A total of four Nigerian na¬tional dailies were used. The papers were carefully selected to reflect the eth¬nic and religious divisions of the country. A total of 360 editions of the newspapers made up the study population. The work was anchored on the agenda setting theory. Findings show that the sampled newspapers adequately covered the incident and that the act was a serious dent on the nation’s attempt at redeeming her battered image. The study among others, recommends that all Nigerian newspapers should join in the global war against terrorism and they should in compliance with their social responsibil¬ity function report and publish stories that promote the image of the nation both locally and internationally. |
