MEDIA- Blessing Oladunjoye, the Publisher of BONews Service, and 11 other female journalists are set to be inducted into the fifth cohort of the Report Women! Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ).
The twelve participants would be inducted after successfully executing leadership projects to enhance the leadership roles of women within the newsroom and published story projects focused on women and girl-child issues.
In a press release issued by the WSCIJ, it was noted that the 2023 cohort is designed to champion improved representation of women as leaders in news and newsroom through capacity development for female reporters, strategic engagement with media executives and staff.
The statement reads in part that “the induction and awards ceremony will officially confer the fellowship on the 2023 Report Women Female Reporters Leadership Programme.”
Ms. Oladunjoye’s leadership project featured the training of entry-level female journalists to emerge as leaders in the newsrooms, while her published investigative story exposed the unethical practices in surrogacy facilities.
The centre also noted that “the published stories cover a wide range of topics, including the effects of insecurity on the health of displaced women and children, human rights violations and unethical practices in surrogacy facilities, delays in justice for SGBV cases, the dearth and struggles of female coaches in a male-dominated athletics leagues, upholding women’s inheritance rights, the dangers of traditional birth attendants in rural areas of the northeast, and the exploitation of female cleaners in some parts of the north-central.
“The inductees include Blessing Oladunjoye, BONews; Maryam Abdullahi of The Cable Newspaper; Ijeoma Okereke from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID); Karina Igonikon of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC News); Folashade Ogunrinde of TV360 and Martha Agas of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“Others are Olufisoye Adenitan, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN); Yemi Olus-Galadima, Making of Champions; Sarah Ayeku, TVC News; Zubaida Ibrahim, Humangle; Fortunate Ozo, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Bamas Victoria of International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).”
The center also noted that the 12 inductees were selected from 173 valid applications submitted across Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, and Kenya, and they will join the growing list of 74 fellows since the inception of the fellowship in 2017.
