Lagos hosts lecture on reporting the grassroots

The third Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series holds on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, at the NECA Building, Agidingbi, Lagos at 10am with the theme: Re-evaluating local governance in Nigeria: What responsibilities for the media.

This year, the lecture is organized in collaboration with the Orderly Society Trust (OST) and aims at stimulating the media to deepen local governance reporting towards focusing on democracy at the grassroots in a bid to engage the tools of a downward-upward mechanism to appropriately mould governance in the country even as it essentially triggers discussions around this most critical tier of government on the heels of the Local Government elections in 2012.

Expected as guest speaker is Prof. Bayo Olukoshi, Director of the United Nations African Development and Planning (UNIDEP), Dakar, Senegal. Discussants include representatives of the civil society, academia, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON).

The date of the lecture coincides with the 77^th birthday anniversary of the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka, which is deliberate (since 2009), according to the organizers “to honour this illustrious African whom the Centre is named after, even as we draw attention to current national issues.”

The Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series is designed to periodically examine varying topical issues that have reverberating effects on perceived performance of the media, on the health the country and its democracy. It intends to contribute to the body of knowledge of practitioners as well as increase awareness and debate around the nexus of media practice and socio-political development issues in the country.

Its maiden edition was hosted in 2008 and paraded respected personalities like Prof. Harry Garuba of the African Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Dr. Olatunji Dare, an Associate Professor of Journalism at Bradley University, Peoria Illinois USA and a former editorial page editor of The Guardian Newspaper as guest speakers.