Foreign
THE Africa Centre for Development Journalism, ACDJ, has called for more data based State and Local Government reporting to improve governance accountability and prevent sub-national governance failures from escalating into national crisis.
Speaking at a Round Table with the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, on Friday, August 5, 2022, Rotimi Sankore E.D and Editor-in-Chief of ACDJ, gave the examples of Katsina and Zamfara States which are currently hotbeds of banditry.
He elaborated that “data from the State Ministry of Education and Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics demonstrate that in Zamfara 60 percent of males have no access to education, while the number for females is 70 percent. Only 16 percent of males have completed secondary school, while for females its a very low 9 percent. Consequently as high as 60 percent of males cannot read or write and for females it is 77 percent.”
Sankore underlined that “in such circumstances of under-development, bandits and extremists will have wider pool of recruits to draw from.”
“In Katsina State, official NBS and State data tells us the state has the highest malnutrition and stunting in Nigeria at 58 percent. Not very surprising as at least half the men in the state have between 7 to 32 children each. Forced child marriage is at a very high 70.9 percent. Katsina has the highest average Fertility Rate in Nigeria of 7.3 children per woman, and also highest polygamy rate of 50%. Katsina also has highest average class size of 101 students per class.”
“Such multiple inequalities in several states, including education, gender, malnutrition demonstrate clearly that there is no exclusive military solution to fragility and insecurity in Nigeria.
But the media must improve data based Sub-national reporting so the public and all stakeholders have a clear understanding of required development solutions at Local, State and National levels.”
The Round Table is part of ACDJs Sub-national Data Accountability Reporting Project and the General Secretary of Nigeria Guild of Editors Iyobosa Uwagiaren welcomed the ACDJ initiative stating that it is in line with the Guilds goals and objectives.
The participants at the Lagos Round Table included 50 print and electronic editors and senior journalists from the West Zone of the NGE.
The event held as part of the NGE West Zonal Conference on Journalism and Digitalisation: Imperative of Good Corporate Governance.
The Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwolu was the special guest at opening of the NGE conference.
A,I
Tags: Africa Centre for Development Journalism Governor Babajide Sanwolu Nigerian Guild of Editors
