The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, WSCIJ has commended the Safer-Safer Initiative’s commitment to making progress under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development, Inclusivity, and Accountability (CMEDIA) Project.
"Thank you for your commitment to making progress, and we are happy that the emails and the feedback on documentation are something that you are taking to heart. It is important for the work that we do. It’s important for accountability. We tell the government to show us proof; we have to be able to show proof," the WSCIJ’s Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Motunrayo Alaka, remarked during a visit to SMI’s office in Abuja on Wednesday.
"Programmatically, we are looking to see and make sure you have those documents in terms of attendance, and I see how you draw the analysis of what you have done," Alaka added.
Alaka explained that the visit to SMI was basically to see how the organisation is faring, appreciate it, and discuss ways of improving the project.
She said: "The visit is so that we are not talking just on the phone and through meetings online, virtual meetings, or when we call you to Lagos. We thought it was an onus on us to also make a journey to individual organisations and, like my colleague said, to also see how you are faring, know what you are doing, know the challenges, and know where you work from. So that we can appreciate the realities that you face. That is why we decided to visit."
While thanking the Safer-Media Initiative for the stories published under the CMEDIA project activities, the WSCIJ's Executive Director and CEO reaffirmed that it was important to seek ways to amplify the stories.
"It’s important that we report that community within that community. We amplify the report within the community, the local government, and the state that is affected because we believe that they are the owners of the issue and they are able to carry on. She emphasised that the world also needs to know about that small community that they probably never knew existed, probably never read about in the news, and never made any news waves or headlines.
“For National, we are able to hold public office holders who serve up to the president, accountable for even the local things, but ultimately we run a Federalism and the state are autonomous, they run their own state. What we hope that may eventually change is the news media dynamics that we have at local and state level,” Alaka noted.
Alaka also encouraged inclusion. She said: "We need to begin to do these contents in such a way that they are inclusive. When we talk about leading voices, we need to diversify: "women, men. You have shown us the numbers, but the issues that we are covering are the voices. Not just the voices of survivors and victims, but the voices of resource persons or sources of news, expert sources—we want that to include the voices of women. For instance, if you are dealing with an environmental pollution issue, there are experts who are women in that sector."
Earlier, the SMI’s Executive Director/CEO, Peter Iorter, shared progress on the organisation’s project activities, which include research, leading conversations on promoting media independence, mentoring and training, and story production. Iorter said his organisation was deliberate in covering the grassroots. He also shared with the WSCIJ the lessons learned, the impact, and the challenges. Speaking on impact tracking and measurement, Iorter mentioned two of SMI’s stories published in the first year of the project that have produced meaningful impact. He also added that the project has impacted his organisation by helping to strengthen its institutional capacity. He stressed the need to ensure the sustainability of the partner organisations beyond grant dependency.
The WSCIJ team led by the Executive Director/CEO, Motunrayo Alaka, included Emem Nssien (Account Officer), Ataman Ehikioya (Monitoring and Evaluation Officer), and Oni Afolabi (Communications Officer). The SMI team had Peter Iorter (Executive Director/CEO), Rosana Opara (Programs Officer), Dinatu Moses (Assistant Programs/Account Officer), and two other staff members of the Safer-Media Initiative, Sunday Chuckwu, ICT Staff, and Anita Haruna.
The CMEDIA project is a multi-level intervention for media freedom and accountability at the subnational level that aims to accelerate public enlightenment and the ecosystem for transparency, accountability, and good governance and to amplify marginalised voices. It has 26 partner organisations, including SMI, and is being coordinated by the WSCIJ. The project is funded by the MacArthur Foundation.