The Press and the Politics of Marginal Voices: Narratives of the Experiences of the Ogoni of Nigeria

Given its place in the vortex of power relations in Nigeria, the Nigerian press has nurtured and/or subverted, promoted and/or combated the legitimacy of hegemonic power-blocs and state in their relationship with minority (marginal) ethnic groups. The role of the press in this context has become more crucial since the struggle of the minority ethnic groups gained a new impetus in the 1980s and 1990s Nigeria, linked as it was to a global resurgence of the drive towards self-determination and the attendant nationalist struggles. This article use the case of the Ogoni ethnic group in the oil-rich region of Nigeria to examine how newspapers and news magazines use narratives to interrupt and intervene in the process of dominant discourses and practices that subordinate relatively powerless minorities. Against the backdrop of narrative theory, the article provides empirical evidence of the centrality of narratives in the mobilization or de-mobilization of marginal intervention in the socio-economic and political life of the centrein the African postcolony.