Media Representation of Nigeria’s Joint Military Task Force in the Niger Delta Crisis

The questions of identity, oil exploration and development of social infrastructure resulted in serious security challenges in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Security problems worsened with the proliferation of ethnic militia groups known in the media as ‘militants,’ ‘hoodlums,’ ‘terrorists,’ ‘thieves,’ etc. In the last five years, armed resistance further degenerated into serious violence, hostage taking and bombing of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. The Nigerian government responded by deploying military troops to the region to arrest the escalating crisis. The Federal Government troops known as the ‘Joint Military Task Force’ or ‘Operation Restore Hope’ was primarily assigned to protect oil installations and restore peace in the region, however the Task Force appeared to go an extra mile, which resulted in indiscriminate killings of the ‘militants’ and civilians including women and children and destruction of property worth millions of Naira in the Niger Delta. This study applies Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the role of the media in manipulating public opinion and people’s perception of the roles of the Joint Military Task Force in the Niger Delta crisis.