The National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has donated equipment worth N20 million to the newly established Penlight for New Media Innovation Centre in Kano.
The founder of the Centre and publisher of Daily Nigeria, an online publication, Mr. Jafar Jafar, disclosed this at the launch of the Centre in Kano Friday.
He said the Centre, a non-governmental organisation, was established in collaboration with PRNigeria to train journalists and students on social media journalism as a profession.
Jafar said it would focus on investigative journalism, social media training, publication and media interface to ensure that journalists’ reports are factual and what they published are nothing but the truth.
“Our targets include individuals, groups, rural communities, constructive engagement of women debate to debate on national issues among others,” he said.
He said there was the need for the people, especially in the northern part of the country, to understand that social media could play a significant role in improving the social and economic status of the people.
“We have to make people especially in the North that the use of social media is not just to post wedding pictures or use it to malign people but it could be used to the excesses of those in positions of authority.”
He said there was the time when he recently used social media to highlight the problems of an old Hausa traditional singer, Magajiya Danbatta, who then got over N5 million through donations from public-spirited individuals.
In his remarks, the director of the Centre, Isa Sanusi, said it would provide a platform where journalists could come and improve their skills.
