FOR THE RECORD: What Editors are to Democracy

FOR THE RECORD: What Editors are to Democracy

Obi of Onitsha

Being the opening address of the Obi of Onitsha, HM. Nnaemeka Alfred Ugochukwu Achebe, Obi Of Onitsha, at the All Nigeria Editors Conference in Enugu on September 24, 2026, with the theme: “The Ballot, The Media, And The Task Of Keeping Democracy Alive”

Distinguished Editors, Publishers, and Custodians of the Public Conscience; Representatives of Government and Civil Society; My fellow Traditional Rulers; Ladies and Gentlemen. Nnọ nu.

I am deeply honoured to stand before you today as Chairman of this auspicious conference. This is the first time I have been invited to set the tone for Nigeria’s Editors in your own house. I thank you for the trust.

Let me begin by commending the Fourth Estate for the work you do for our country. Your impact reaches far beyond our shores. We cannot thank you enough for the sacrifices you make, and the risks you endure. May the Almighty reward you. And let me welcome you to Enugu — the Coal City. A city built by labour, tested by history, and known for resilience. It is a fitting place to discuss how we keep a nation’s democracy alive. The State Governor, His Excellency, Dr. Peter Mbah, knows, but I am also very proud to declare to the audience gathered here that I have been a happy citizen of Enugu from my childhood days.

I have watched Nigeria’s journey from the optimism of Independence, through the turbulence of military rule, into the fragile and still-unfinished project of democratic self-governance. It is in that spirit of witness, and of shared responsibility, that I speak to you today.

You have chosen a theme of unusual gravity: “The Ballot, the Media and the Task of Keeping Democracy Alive.”- That last phrase — “keeping democracy alive” — presupposes something we often take for granted. Many think that democracy, once established, sustains itself. It does not.

Democracy is not a monument we erect and walk away from. It is a fire lit to keep the house warm. It must be tended, fed, and protected from wind and rain, or it dies quietly in the night while everyone believes it still burns.

In our Igbo tradition, the Obi does not rule by decree. He rules in council, in dialogue, in the constant testing of truth against the wisdom of elders and the voice of the people. Onye kwe, chi ya ekwe — a person’s destiny is affirmed by consent. Kingship here has always been checked by community, by consultation, by honest speech.

The ballot box, therefore, is not an import grafted onto our soil. It is a modern vessel for an old African value: that legitimate power flows from the consent, the voice, and the informed judgment of the people. But consent is only meaningful if it is informed. And this is where you, the Editors of this nation, become not merely chroniclers of democracy, but its guardians.

The ballot is the citizen’s voice. The media is the mirror by which that citizen sees the world clearly enough to know what to say with that voice. When the mirror is cracked, or worse, deliberately distorted, the citizen no longer votes from truth but votes from illusion. And a democracy built on illusion is not democracy. It is drama. It is theatre.

This brings me to your sub-theme, which unsettles me more than any topic I have addressed in recent years: “When Lies Look Real: Detecting and Debunking AI Disinformation Before, During and After Elections.”

We are living through a transformation as profound as the printing press, and perhaps more dangerous. For centuries, falsehood required a human liar — someone who had to look you in the eye. Today, falsehood can be manufactured by machines in seconds, with a persuasiveness that mimics truth so precisely that even trained eyes struggle.

A voice that sounds exactly like a governor can now say what he never said. A video can place a candidate where he never was. An image can show violence that

never occurred, timed to inflame passions 48 hours to an election. A fake voice note in Igbo can circulate in a town union WhatsApp group and decide how a community vote.

This is not distantly hypothetical. It is here, now, in our elections, in our WhatsApp groups, on our timelines. And it is uniquely dangerous for Nigeria because it exploits our greatest strengths: our diversity, our passionate politics, and our deep trust in community and kinship networks as sources of information. It also exploits some of our weaknesses such as ignorance, poverty, and hopelessness amongst the majority of our population.

The same social fabric that has made us resilient can now become the fastest channel for falsehood — because we trust the neighbour, the family group, more than we trust a stranger.

Therefore, I ask you to consider three responsibilities that now rest upon you with particular weight.

First: The Responsibility of Verification before Speed. In the old order, being first was honour. In this new order, being first with a lie dressed as news is a betrayal of public trust, however unintentional. You must become, individually and institutionally, sceptical of anything too perfect, too damning, too conveniently timed to be shared before it is checked.

The discipline of pausing to ask “how do I know this is true?” must become as instinctive as the instinct to rush to publish once was.

Second: The Responsibility of Literacy. You must understand the tools of disinformation to detect their fingerprints — the unnatural cadence in a synthetic voice, the wrong shadows in a fabricated image, the bot networks that amplify a lie in unison.

But detection is not enough. You must also become teachers. Partner with Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), National Orientation Agency (NOA), universities, and town unions, e.t.c., to run public clinics on spotting AI fakes. Help the market woman in Ogbete and the undergraduate in Nsukka develop healthy scepticism, without letting that scepticism curdle into cynicism. A people who believe everything are as endangered as a people who believe nothing.

Third: The Responsibility of Courage. It is easy to debunk a lie that favours your opponent. It is hard to debunk one that flatters your own camp. True integrity in this era means correcting falsehoods regardless of who benefits — before, during, and after elections, when the temptation to let a convenient narrative stand is strongest.

I urge INEC to consider establishing a Joint Election Rapid Response Desk — a coalition of newsrooms working together to flag and debunk viral falsehoods in real time.

I do not make these statements to judge you. I know the pressures Nigerian journalism faces: economic precarity, political intimidation, and the sheer velocity of the information age. I say this because I believe in you. The same profession that exposed colonial injustice, that gave voice to independence, that documented our darkest hours and proudest triumphs, still carries the capacity to rise to this challenge.

Let this conference not be just speeches and communiqués. Let it be a council of war against the erosion of truth in our public life. Let Enugu be remembered as the place where Nigeria’s Editors resolved to defend the ballot from the lie, and the citizen from deception dressed as fact.

Democracy, as I said, is a fire that must be tended. I charge you today to be among its most faithful keepers. When politics gets hot, when institutions waver, you must be the constant compass that points the nation back to truth.

Before I conclude, let me make a plea on behalf of the Joint Body of the Representatives of Igbo Archbishops and Bishops and the South East Council of Traditional Rulers on Peace and Reconciliation, the working group of which I coordinate. Our prayer is for the media to spread the message that qualified voters should come out en-masse to vote as well as protect their votes in the coming national elections. It is both their civic duty and right to ensure that their votes count.

I impart royal blessings on behalf of the entire traditional institution of our dear country on you all. May the Almighty God safeguard you, increase you, and grant you and your families good health. May you return safely to your stations and reap the fruits of your hard work.

As we say in Igboland, daalụ nu. Thank you very much.