The third outing of the lecture programme was a continuation of honouring the contributions of Prof. Wole Soyinka to humanity with the media lecture series holding on July 13. The theme of the lecture, Re-evaluating Local Governance in Nigeria: What responsibilities for the media, was even more critical at the moment as it came at the wake of the 2011 general elections and on the heels of the local government elections. It was particularly instructive of the need to build democracy from the grassroots, the role the media should play in ridding local governments of the current decay and charting a way forward for Nigeria’s democracy as a whole.
The speaker, Professor ‘Bayo Olukoshi of the UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (UNIDEP) took the audience on a historical and comparative analysis of local governance and the key roles of the media.