Truth at Whatever Cost: The Day of Empire Is Gone: Press Censorship in Nigeria during the Second World War

Abstract

Press censorship in Nigeria, Britain’s largest black African colony, during the Second World War was investigated, against the background of spontaneous support of colonial Nigerians for the exertions of the imperial power to defeat Nazism and make the world free for democracy and associated freedoms. Adopting the historical method of description and analysis of relevant archival and secondary sources, the study concludes that the rabid intolerance of criticism which the imposition of press censorship regulations foreboded in wartime Nigeria largely ended as a paper tiger.  The press successfully circumvented the regulations due to the loopholes inherent in them, the palpable support of the newspaper publishers for Allied victory, and the liberal disposition of the Colonial Office, until late 1945 when the colonial state enforced full press censorship on the Zik Press.

Keywords: Media History, Colonial Nigeria, Press Censorship, Second World War, British Imperialism