of the military, is generally acknowledged. However, despite its past achievements and its future potential in the light of a vast market and the enterprising nature of its peoples, the media has stagnated and, in fact, appears to be on the decline in some respects. This decline is apparent in the seeming public disenchantment with the media, and particularly in the diminishing circulation figures of newspapers which suggest a drop in the number of readers. The broadcast sector, on the other hand, appears to be flourishing with the exponential growth in the number of radio and television stations around the country. Support for the media during the period of military rule was largely aimed at providing relief from acts of harassment, intimidation and repression of the media. While incidence of such acts have continued since the restoration of civil democracy in 1999 and still require some attention, these are no longer the most critical issues of focus. The level of occurrence of such incidence has dropped drastically, and they are now more usually perpetrated by low-level law enforcement personnel, suggesting that attacks on the media are no longer state policy as they appeared to have been during the period of military rule. The critical issue now appears to be how the media can be positioned to effectively play its role of a watchdog, holding public officers accountable to the people, providing the citizens with information about the programme, policies and activities of the government, subjecting those policies, programmes and activities to scrutiny, exposing corruption, misconduct and incompetence in government, and serving as a true“market place of ideas”, by providing a platform for debate on public issues. The problems which limit the Nigerian media's ability to perform these functions are multi-faceted. They include the problem of credibility with its audience, the nature of ownership and management of media establishment which does adequately reflect the ethnic and gender diversity of the country, the lack of editorial independence in the media, particularly publicly funded media, the conditions of service of media personnel, the economic environment under which the media operates in Nigeria, the social environment under which it operates, particularly the high level of illiteracy, the inadequacy of training of journalists and other media personnel, the lack of or inadequacy of the technological infrastructure at the disposal of the media, the inadequacy of investments in the media, etc. Broadcast Media Although the broadcast sector appears to be flourishing, as indicated earlier, a major challenge for broadcasting in Nigeria is the lack of independence of