By Golok Nanmwa ,Jos
80 delegates will converge for a one-day engagement on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to delve into the role of the media in deepening democratic governance in Nigeria.
The roundtable will feature a lead presentation by Dr. Otive Igbuzor, founding Executive Director of African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD) on “Beyond The Rhetoric Of Campaigns: The Role Of Citizens and The Media In Ensuring Democratic Accountability”, which will be followed by contributions by a lead discussant and a plenary discourse.
The event, to be chaired by Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, Senior Fellow at Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and chairman of the editorial board of Premium Times and attended by Mr. Tunde Rahman, Media Aide to the president, as guest participant will additionally spotlight President Bola Tinubu’s campaign promises.
The documentation of the promises, which cuts across several development indicators, were part of the benchmarks of IPC’s media monitoring on the coverage of the 2023 electoral processes across ten national print and ten online news mediums.
Representatives of the media, the government, CSOs, development partners and international community will share ideas on frameworks and mechanisms ensuring democratic accountability as part of the event.
IPC shall also launch its recently developed IOS and Media Election App through which hundreds of journalists and other media professionals, the academia, researchers, etc., would be able to download the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage and have easy access to the content. The European Union funded resource publication has been widely endorsed and over 20,000 copies have been distributed across the Country.
In a statement, the Executive Director of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade said: “ IPC have been supporting the media for more than a decade for the purpose of professionalism in the coverage of the democratic processes and elections and it is expected that this event would lead to the development of collaborative strategies for greater impact”.
“The gathering is also important because the fulfillment of campaign promises is at the core of democratic accountability”, he added.
The meeting is facilitated by the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos-Nigeria implementing partner with the Institute for Media and Society (IMS) within component 4 (Support to media) of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria-Phase II (EUSDGN II) project.
The specific objective of the EU funded media component is to ensure that, “The Media, including New and Social Media, provides fair, accurate, ethical and inclusive coverage of the Electoral Process”.
