Published 28th Jun, 2024

By Tola Owoyele

The Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) will hold a one-day media lecture series to commemorate the 90th birthday of Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, with speakers to include Biodun Jeyifo, Chidi Odinkalu and Odia Ofeimun.

The series, titled ‘The Death of Truth? Realism, Literature and Journalism in an Age of Disinformation’, is scheduled for July 13 at the Muson Centre in Onikan, Lagos.

According to a statement signed by Motunrayo Alaka, the executive director and CEO of WSCIJ, this year’s series is designed to help writers, artists and journalists reflect on their responsibilities of preserving and promoting the truth at all times.

“The theme emerged from a pressing need to examine how different forms of storytelling—be it realistic art, literary fiction, or journalistic reporting—contend with the complexities of truth in today’s world, which is increasingly saturated with disinformation,” the statement reads in part.

Biodun Jeyifo, a professor of comparative literature and African-American studies at Harvard University, will deliver the keynote address at the annual event, which is in its 16th year.

Also billed to deliver speeches at the event are Chidi Odinkalu, a professor of practice in international human rights law at The Fletcher School, Tufts University; ⁠Odia Ofeimun, poet, author and political scientist; Kadaria Ahmed, the chief executive officer of RadioNow 95.3 FM; Chiamaka Okafor, a co-founder of Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue Foundation (MILAD); Ohi Alegbe, a media practitioner; and Tolulope Adeleru-Balogun, the head of programmes at News Central TV.

The chairman of the occasion is Umaru Pate, a professor of media history and vice chancellor of Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State.

First hosted on March 27, 2008, the annual lecture was subsequently held on every July 13 of the years that followed to commemorate Soyinka’s birthday.

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