Advocates of grassroots development have charged Community Development Association, CDA, members to maximize the media space for the developments of their communities in Lagos State.
The charge was made on Thursday in Lagos at the presentation of a publication on Media-driven Advocacy and Community Engagement on The Development of Lagos Communities, as part of activities under a project supported by the European Union ‘Agent for Citizens-Driven Transformation’ (EU-ACT) project, funded by British Council and implemented by International Press Centre (IPC) across three local governments of Lagos – Lagos Mainland, Alimoso and Ikorodu.
The Executive Director Journalists for Democratic Rights, JODER, Barrister Kunle Sanyaolu, noted that it was important that community members took conscious efforts to have access to the media while being aware of their duties.
“We think that communities in the context of poverty and lack of development, exclusion from mainstream development and human right violations in local areas, deprivation from social economic dividends, on their own can take proactive actions. One of the ways they can do that is to have a network with the media, in order to advance their interest,” he said.
“This is more or less a capacity building for communities to develop the strength to be change agents on their own to be able to propel their communities without necessarily waiting for government to do it for them.
“There are a lot of violations going on in the rural areas and we think that with media presence their interest can be better advanced,” he added.
The Deputy Director Training, Voice of Nigeria, VON, Mrs. Ugochi Ugonma, said community membership was not restricted to geographical areas but a coming together of individuals who had issues to solve.
She said media collaboration would go a long way in helping community members achieve their goals.
According to her: “If you need development and leave out the media, you will labour in vain. The media remains an essential organ; bring the media to tell your story.
“Alone we can do little, together we can achieve much. With us and the media we will achieve more.
“What we are doing is to let the authority be responsible to their right. We can only achieve this through the media. It is the media that will help us bring what we do to the outside world. We also should be able to organise our community well. You are directly participating in democracy.
“When you engage the media to showcase your problems, the leaders get clearer pictures of your needs and they will prioritise what they want to do. If you don’t engage them they may not know the importance of what you want in your community.”
The Executive Director, International Press Centre, Mr. Olanrewaju Arogundade, said through the presentation the organisations wanted to see the community to see solutions to their problems.
He said what they discovered was that they needed the media, because some of them didn’t know they had one on one encounter with their local office chairmen, they also didn’t know how to do advocate and articulate their issues.
He said: “We discovered that anytime media is involved, the duty bearer are ready to listen to the communities and when they are also empowered, the communities and the local government cannot do without them. The whole idea is that we want to see solutions to some of the problems.
“We cannot solve all the problems at the same time. There are some you do and we see the impact. That is why we are happy that within the past one year we are able to point to some achievements. In Mainland Local Government, after they met with the council chairman he committed himself to building one borehole in each of the ward.
“We have even told them to go back and demand for more, because in Mainland they are having water challenge. We believe if the people of a community come together and they involved the media in their engagement it is possible for some of their problems to be solved.”
