Lagos is a city to behold! It took me 4.5 hours to fly from Lagos to Nairobi last Tuesday. The previous day I had gone to see Emeke Izeze, MD of The Guardian and Gbenga Adefaye, Managing Editor of The Vanguard Newspaper in Lagos. I had left The Vanguard at 3:30 pm to take a taxi to our hotel – perhaps 15 – 20 kilometres away. The journey took 4.5 hours!
In spite of the challenging traffic situation both our radio and photojournalists managed to capture some fascinating stories from the watery slums of Makoko to the glitz of Bar Beach, Victoria Island. They have all returned now to their home nations and are taking on their second assignment with zest. We look forward to their output. In the meantime, the team at Africa Media Online are hard at work getting their content online and available for sale.
Above: The Nigerian team in front of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in Ogba, Lagos. PHOTO: Gbile Oshadipe
Nigeria also squeeked through in the final minute of their game against Mozambique when they scored the only points of the game to keep alive a dim hope of making it to South Africa in 2010. Their fate is still very much in the hands of Tunisia who also won their game against Kenya. The matches next month will decide who goes to the finals in their group. In just a few days Nigeria becomes the centre of world football for a few weeks when they play host to the U-17 FIFA World Cup in 8 cities around the nation.
The Twenty Ten project, in the meantime will be gearing up for the final training workshop for journalists this year which will take place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso from November 11-17. The workshop will all be in French with French speaking photographers, text journalists and radio reporters. We are looking forward to French content coming online for the first time on Africa Media Online.