Manasseh Mbachii, one of TheMiddlebelt Reporters’ journalists, has been selected for the 2024 UDEME Accountability Reporting Fellowship program.
The 2024 UDEME Accountability Reporting Fellowship is hosted by the UDEME, an accountability and transparency project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development.
Manasseh is among the twenty-one journalists selected out of the over 300 applications received both from Nigeria and Ghana for the six-month cross-country reporting fellowship and has undergone a two-day virtual capacity-building training.
With this fellowship, Manasseh and twenty others will identify red flags in budget line items and unique patterns/trends in contract awards at the sub-national level, thereby setting the agenda for a transparent budget process in West Africa.
Uchenna Igwe, the moderator of the fellowship, while addressing fellows at the two-day capacity-building training, said that the fellowship will focus on agriculture, education, health, and public infrastructure while placing emphasis on gender inclusion.
During the training sessions, fellows were trained on investigative reporting, data for accountability reporting, budget formulation and process, and the role of journalists in the Nigeria Agenda 2050, drawing seasoned facilitators and journalists across Nigeria who helped in discussing the sessions.
Tobi Oluwatola, the Executive Director of CJID, and CJID’s Deputy Director for the Accountability Programme, Mboho Eno, in their separate speeches, remarked the fellowship is aimed at building the capacity of journalists on the importance of data in social accountability and driving impact for investigative reporting in West Africa.
Dapo Olorunyomi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, stated the legal basis for accountability journalism citing Section: 22 of the Nigeria’s Constitution and 162 {5} of the Ghana’s Constitution that mandated journalists to deliver on the goals of accountability in journalism.
Dapo stated; “The first role of journalism in democracy is to serve as a mechanism of accountability.”
On Data for Accountability, CJID’s Director of Programs, Akintunde Babatunde emphasized a need for fellows to collaborate with experts and organizations specializing in data analysis to ensure transparency in data sources and methodology while maintaining ethical standards and respect for privacy and security.
In her closing remarks, the Program Manager for UDEME-CJID, Ijeoma Okereke congratulated fellows on their selection for the 2024 UDEME Accountability Fellowship and for successfully taking part in our 2-day training and information session, adding that story grants will be issued on a rolling basis within the fellowship period.
The 2024 UDEME Social Accountability Reporting Fellowship is the project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), which seeks to build the capacity of journalists to identify red flags in budget line items and unique patterns/trends in contract awards at the sub-national level, thereby setting the agenda for a transparent budget process in West Africa.
