By DADA AYOKHAI
The Civil Empowerment and Rule of Law Support Initiative,CERLSI has in their contribution of holding the government accountable to the people organized a seminar on the essentials of freedom of information act,FOI, for freelance and online journalists in the state.
The capacity building which is first of such took place in Benin was attended by online journalists under the umbrella of Online practitioners of Nigeria coordinated by the former chairman of Nigeria union of journalists,NUJ, otunba Mike Aladenika.
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In his address at the occasion, the CERLSI executive Director, Sam Kargbo, SAN said the seminar comes in handy for two reasons.
“The first is that Edo state is on the cusp of a governorship election in 2024. Issues concerning physical and human infrastructure like roads, health care, education and security of lives and property took centre stage in the past seven years in Edo state.”
According to the executive director, there were reports “that online and mainstream journalist had difficulties with accessing government information, and this is in spite of the reported interest of most subnational governments like Edo in the Open Government Partnership, OGP, thematic areas of zero tolerance to corruption, citizen participation in governance and access to information.”
The Second he said “is the key role that journalists, especially online and freelance journalists can play in interrogating infractions in governance”
He further said “To do this within the ambit: of the law, and avoid issues related to fake news, misinformation, disinformation and unnecessary media censorship with responsible reportage of news-related stories and investigations, this FOI seminar becomes pertinent.”
The executive director said the body is of the view that the seminar will be strategically positioned to engage state actors to make requests that will lead to promoting free, fair and credible elections in Edo state and Nigeria.
The seminar paper was delivered by Mr
Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku, CERLSI deputy executive director.
The highlights of the seminar was a group photograph by the participants along with the CERLSI official’s.
