Ahead of the general elections, a one-day round table for stakeholders on the presentation of media monitoring of elections coverage and unveiling of the revised Nigeria Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage will be held tomorrow 24 January 2023.

Stakeholders from the media, civil society organisations, academia and regulatory bodies will converge at the roundtable event, to assess how the media has reported elections matters in October and November, 2022.

The roundtable is convened by the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos- Nigeria implementing partner with the Institute for Media and Society (IMS) within component 4 (Support to media) of the European Union Support to Democracy Governance in Nigeria-Phase II (EUSDGN) project.

The EU funded event is to strengthen the media for fair, accurate, ethical, and inclusive coverage of the electoral processes and elections by promoting democracy in the country.
The Executive Director IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade in a statement said: “In addition to promoting democratic elections, the analysis of the media monitoring report of the 2023 elections is pivotal in determining the extent to which the elections can be said to be inclusive”.

He added: “This is why IPC will also present a performance scorecard by the monitored media based on their promotion of inclusive issues in their coverage and reportage of the electoral processes and elections particularly in line with the stipulations of the Media Code of Election Coverage”.

The newspapers monitored are The Punch, The Guardian, Daily Sun, Vanguard, ThisDay, Nigerian Tribune, The Nation, Leadership, Daily Trust, and Daily Independent while the five online media include The Cable, the Premium Times, Eagle Online, RealNews and the Authority.

Also monitored are the News Portal (website) and the twitter handles of Nigeria’s election management body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Prof Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika of the Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, shall serve as the reviewer of the reports, while Mr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren, General Secretary, NGE and Dr. Chido Onumah, Coordinator of AFRICMIL, (Vice President, North Central, ACSPN), shall be the lead discussants.

The overall goal of the media component under EUSDGN II of which IPC is the lead partner is to “Support the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria with the media (broadcast, print and online media) helping to facilitate the key ingredient of credible elections through engagement and professionalism in coverage and reportage of the electoral processes.”