Abstract

The media over the years have been globally acknowledged as the watchdog of the society and their information/monitoring roles considered a sine qua non for democracy and good governance. The media, popularly referred to as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, have been identified as a key institution that plays a critical role in defining the political, economic and socio-cultural reality of given nations. The importance of the media today is immense and indispensable. Never before in mankind’s history, the media had such a noteworthy impact on our lives (behaviors) and environments-this perhaps is due to modern technology. In developing state like Nigeria, the media have been instrumental to the struggle for democracy in 1999 after a long period of military rule. Based on this backdrop, this paper examined the contribution or the role of Nigerian media to Nigeria’s transition to civil rule (democracy) in May 1999. The paper adopted descriptive research method through the use of secondary sources of data and anchored on the precepts of the Agenda Setting Theory. However, the study concluded that access to media is enormous for the success of democracy because for any democratic regime to survive, adequate quality information is essential.  

Key words: Democratization, democracy, imperative and media.