Nduka Obaigbena, a media mogul, organizes events that celebrate Nigeria. The supermodel Naomi Campbell joined him in London last month.

By ANGELO RAGAZA

LAGOS, Nigeria - It’s hard to rehabilitate a country - especially Nigeria, which has consistently been rated as one of the most corrupt nations in the world by Transparency International-USA. But Nduka Obaigbena is used to long odds. The Nigerian media mogul has been challenging his country’s often brutal and self-enriching rulers for decades.
“Nduka obviously has a remarkable vision, real passion and a special message,” said the supermodel Naomi Campbell, an admirer. “He’s not just a promoter. The more I found out, the more I wanted to be involved.”
Every year since 2000, Mr. Obaigbena has honored Nigerians who fight graft or injustice, in particular government officials and corporate executives who exemplify good governance through financial transparency, accountability and respect for the law.
But he celebrates them by hosting the likes of Ms. Campbell and John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, at star-filled events, including the ThisDay Awards, named for his media empire and the influential independent newspaper at its center.
Since 2006, Mr. Obaigbena has also held a mammoth concert series promoting Nigeria’s economic and political progress, the ThisDay festival, luring pop stars like Beyonce, Jay-Z, P. Diddy and Shakira. Concerts are being held this year in Abuja, Lagos, Washington, D.C., and London.
But can a party save a country?
To some observers, the lavishness of Mr. Obaigbena and his events undermines their credibility and their message.
“All this talk about good governance does not go beyond sloganeering,” said Philip Ikita, a Nigerian journalist, sociologist and development worker. “We who have stayed connected with our rural population know that there is no progress for the Nigerian people.”
Mr. Obaigbena disagrees. “We have the longest period of democracy in Nigeria, ever,” said the mogul in March, sitting in a suite at the St. Regis hotel in New York. “We have new leadership. We have to sustain that momentum.”
Though no one is saying Mr. Obaigbena is responsible for those changes, he has become their promoter .
And his optimism is not completely unwarranted. To be sure, half of Nigeria’s population lacks access to potable water, and the infant mortality rate is 1 in 10 births. But foreign investment nearly quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Because of a financial restructuring and swelling oil prices, Nigeria has almost no foreign debt, almost $50 billion in foreign reserves and a growing trade surplus.
What role Mr. Obaigbena’s ThisDay Award has had in encouraging good governance is impossible to say - it has honored people whose efforts are already well known. Winners have included Bukola Saraki, the governor of Kwara state who invited Zimbabwean farmers persecuted by the regime of President Robert Mugabe to resettle in Nigeria; and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance minister who negotiated $18 billion in debt relief for Nigeria .
Mr. Obaigbena began ThisDay as a weekly, then called ThisWeek, in 1987. During a violent government crackdown on the press in the late 1990s, he was arrested for publishing articles criticizing the military regime of General Sani Abacha. After a brief detention, Mr. Obaigbena went into exile for two years .
In December 2006, the editorial board chairman, Godwin Agbroko, a fearless critic of Nigeria’s ruling party, was found in his car , fatally shot in the neck.
“We get threats every day,” Mr. Obaigbena said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll keep speaking the truth.”
At the next festival, Mr. Obaigbena plans to promote microfinance as the way to empower Nigeria’s 146 million people. As he sees it, if the sleeping giant that is this consumer market, the largest in Africa, were to rouse, “African superpower” would no longer be a contradiction. “It’s a new country emerging,” he said. “And it’s time to showcase it.”