UNEVEN STEPS: The Story of the Nigerian Guild of Editors

This book discusses the role, place, achievements, and failings of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in the quest for press freedom, professional respect, press responsibility, and accountability. It is as much an examination of an institutional platform as it is an analysis of the role of individual players in nurturing or restricting the objectives of the Guild as a professional association. From the innocuous beginning of 1961 during civil rule to the pressures of practice under military rule, and the embrace of civil rule again, the book traces the uneven steps in the emergence of the Guild as a preeminent voice in media and public affairs today. It is a story of courage and appeasement, an account of how the forces of history shaped the actors and how the actors in turn also shaped the course of history. Yet for all its achievements, there remain lingering issues that stifle professionalism, which the Guild and indeed the larger media must deal with if they wish to serve as “genuine pathfinders of enduring national development.”