THE Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) has announced that its Annual Lecture for this year has been fixed to hold on Wednesday, July 13, 2022.
The announcement which is contained in a statement by Ms Motunrayo Alaka, WSCIJ’s Executive Director, revealed that this year’s lecture, which will hold under the theme: “Can Democracy Work Without a Strong Sub-National Media?” will be used to also publicly launch WSCIJ’s Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability (CMEDIA) project. National Record is a member of the 3-year collaborative project, which started in March 2022.
This year’s lecture, which is the 14th in the series, is scheduled to hold strictly as a webinar (online), and will hold discussions on the roles of the media at the sub-national levels of government.
Dr Kole Shettima, Director, MacArthur Foundation Africa Office and Chiedo Nwankwor, Vice Dean for Education and Academic Affairs, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS), will lead the conversations that will be moderated by Uduak Amimo, broadcaster and executive coach.
Also lined up to feature as panellists are Ibiba Don Pedro, Managing Director, National Point; Haruna Mohammed, Co-publisher, WikkiTimes; ‘Fisayo Soyombo, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism and Social Justice; Adaora Onyechere, Executive Director, Gender Strategy Advancement International and Mansur Liman, Director-General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN).
“The saturation of media at the centre and the lack of accountability at the state and local government levels, even as the nation heads for the 2023 general elections, informed WSCIJ’s choice of the theme to draw attention to the need for an independent media holding government to account at the sub-national levels towards a vibrant and thriving democracy. The lecture event will mark the 88th birthday of Wole Soyinka, the grand patron of WSCIJ.
“The Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability (CMEDIA) is a multi-level intervention for media independence and government accountability supported by the MacArthur Foundation. It is working through 26 partner organizations to improve public awareness and the ecosystem for transparency, accountability and good governance and amplify marginalized voices especially at state and local government levels and in the private sector,” the statement said, while calling on project partners and interested participants to register for the webinar with this link: – .
The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation with social justice programs aimed at exposing corruption, regulatory failures and human rights abuses with the tool of investigative journalism.
The initiative started in 2005 under the name Wole Soyinka Investigative Reporting Award (WSIRA). It operated as an award-giving organization till 2008 when it took on the name Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ).
The change in name became necessary to reflect the intention of the coordinators to embrace a more robust line of activities; such that have a greater capacity for engendering the appropriate values of investigative journalism in the Nigerian media environment.
