Folio Media Group partners Africa Institute for Public Policy

By Sony Neme

Unveils plan to train over 10,000 journalists in 2021

Folio Media and Creative Academy (FMCA), a member of the Folio Media Group, has signed a partnership deal with Africa Institute for Public Policy (AIPP) to train journalists and creative industry practitioners from across the country.

The historic partnership was sealed on Saturday between the Publisher and Chairman of Folio Media Group, Mr. Fidelis Anosike, and Professor Sylvester Monye, President of AIPP, in Onicha-Ugbo, Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State.

Mr. Anosike explained: “The agreement we have signed is to create an enabling collaboration that will see Folio Media and Creative Academy take advantage of the awesome facilities provided by Africa Institute for Public Policy, AIPP for better productivity, as we need to begin the critical and impactful training of journalists and creative practitioners.

“Like you already know, Asaba has become the base of Nollywood in Nigeria, and researches have shown missing links in terms of capacity building.

And one of the reasons we are not developing rapidly as we should as a nation is lack of capacity in critical areas of the economy.

Like our motto states, this is about building capacity for today.” He noted further: “Another critical element of this partnership is that the archive of Daily Times Nigeria Plc, which is the oldest surviving newspaper in Africa, dating back to 94 years that has been digitized will berth in AIPP in Onicha-Ugbo.

What that means is that if you are in search of any information dating back to when Nigeria was founded, you have to come to this serene environment and do your research.

“The archive is a central point of Folio Media Group that we have spent millions of dollars to preserve, as it becomes a very critical infrastructure for research in Nigeria, because without knowledge you won’t know where you are going.

We are glad to have found a decent place where it will rest, so that at the end of the day, the whole country can come in here to navigate, because ex nihilo nihi fit (out of nothing comes nothing).”

Anosike while giving further insight into the new deal for the academy said: “With the faculty and programmes in place, we intend taking off with the training of at least two hundred people before the year runs out.

But for next year, we shall be having a series of training, at least four times in a month, and at the end of the year, we should have trained about ten thousand people in core journalism in both print and electronics.

“And most importantly, the creative industry, which is the strongest emerging economy in Nigeria, has Asaba as the hub of Nollywood.

As we speak, the Delta State government is building a huge film village that is expected to be completed and commissioned by January 2021.

“Happily Facebook has started an algorithm project for longer videos, and they have only done their training in Lagos, but where we have the bulk of movie production is here in Asaba, Delta State capital.

It is a budding industry. The distributors are here.

Siting this here gives you access to global training that is needed for Nollywood.”

Anosike added: “For us, we are going to use everything that we have which includes The Daily Times, Miss Nigeria and the Creative African Exchange that we have just berthed on the continent with AFREXIMBANK and the one we are about carrying out with AFTA.

We use everything we have to build capacity and keep what we have here and stem migrations that have been draining human and financial resources from the regions. “One of the challenges of today’s technology is fake news, which is as a result of lack of capacity training for journalists.

When Daily Times held sway, we had the Daily Times Institute that Babatunde Jose instituted. So, having this here is to ensure that all stakeholders must come together to build our tomorrow.

I am glad that it has taken off formally.” Professor Monye, who doubles as the Chief Performance Adviser to the Delta State Governor, said: “It is a major initiative for the institute with a lot of possibilities, as we have put down a lot of facilities for human capital development.

With this agreement today (Saturday), it gives us the opportunity to activate the infrastructure for the benefit of the people of this country.” He said: “We have been on this journey for about ten years, putting this infrastructure on ground.

The greatest enabler of any economy is education, which is why our motto is empowering people through knowledge.

“We believe that this infrastructure we have here and this collaboration we are starting with Folio Media Group is the beginning of a major journey that would move ideas into action and action into results.

We believe that this collaboration will move us into the vision we envisioned when we were conceiving this institute.

“Another important aspect about this partnership is that we are very strong in capacity training, which is why in the last five years, the Delta State government has held its retreats here, as this is one of the best institutions for capacity training in Nigeria.

We are strong in our faculties, reputation and our infrastructure. So, in leveraging with the media capacity of the Folio Group, we believe it will be a strong value for the people of this country.”

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He added: “This partnership with Folio Media Group is a major step forward as this is a major central platform with which we can flag off training in every nook and cranny of the oil-rich region. Niger Delta is a huge economic base.

With the other SouthEast states, we are talking of about a two trillion naira economy.

By creating this platform, it gives the media and the creative industry an opportunity to go back to training, so that quality is delivered all the way.”