14 THE NIGERIAN PRESS, THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: ENGAGING THE POST AMNESTY DEAL IN THE NIGER DELTA Uzoechi Nwagbara ABSTRACT The coalescence of effective media and the public sphere is a synergy that brings about democracy, sustainable development and good governance. Irrespective of its shortcomings, the Nigerian media has been described as a bastion of people’s agitation, which impacts on the public sphere, a realm where private individuals meet to address societal questions with the state. This is the case with the Nigerian press, whose duties and ideals have been called to action in the wake of the amnesty deal in the Niger delta. In order to achieve peace and good governance in the region, serious grassroots and national information dissemination so as to guarantee objectivity and fairness in news reporting thereby impacting on the regime’s mode of governance is required. Therefore, the partnership between the public sphere and media is essential in the post amnesty era for increased democratic experimentation and conflict resolution because it is a platform that can be used to inform and sensitise the people, as well as to influence the activities of government in the light of legitimate leadership in the public space. Keywords: The Nigerian press; the public sphere; Habermas; sustainable development; good governance INTRODUCTION ‘‘There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means to detect lies.’’ --- Walter Lippmann. ‘‘Without information there is no accountability. Information is power and the more people who possess it, the more power is distributed. The degree to which a media is independent is the degree to which it can perform an effective public watchdog function over the conduct of public affairs’’. --- Pope Jeremy. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa (Volume 12, No.3, 2010) ISSN: 1520-5509 Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, Pennsylvania