CHAPTER ONE

1.0       INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

A trend of violent conflicts spreading through Nigeria in recent years has intensified in the past months leaving hundreds of people dead and thousand displaced.

This research work therefore focuses on how the press should report such conflicts is inevitable in a plural society such as Nigerian with diverse socio-cultural identities, the potential of conflict is further heightened by inter-group suspicion and corrupt leadership at almost every strata of the society. Thus an otherwise simple incident such as a woman crossing through a congregational prayer as it happened in Jos in 1001 may precipitate a violent clash between potential opponents

It is clear that the Nigerian state is presently grapping with latent ethnic and regional at identifying the reportage of this conflict the extent of

Nigerian press education of the audience on conflicts, and how the Nigerian press has been able to proffer solutions to conflicts in the country.

In the last decade as a result of downtown in the nation’s economy, there has been a very high degree of human sufferings, anger, disillusionment, moral decay and high crime rate. Under this harsh living conditions he members of the society tends to be aggressive and violent prone this has result in conflicts like Aglumeri and Umemeri, Ife and

Modakeke, Ijaw-Itsekiri, the Kaduna sharia riot, the Kano religious crisis and the recent Jos crisis the Nigerian citizen often turns to violence as a