The clamour for the passage of the Gender Equality Bill which is before the National Assembly as well as affirmative action for women across the leadership spectrum of the country has continued to dominate public discourse.

This clamour was the fulcrum of a One Day Leadership Seminar for Female Journalists on Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at the Ernest Ikoli Press Centre (NUJ Secretariat), Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The seminar is part of the Female Reporters Leadership Programme for female journalists with the theme: “Factors Challenging the Rise of Female Journalists in Leading Newsrooms”, a champion building edition of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism: Report Women organised by one of its participants, Karina Igonikon.

The keynote speaker and first prize award winner of the prestigious Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Report Women Programme, Ann Godwin, who is the Executive Director of Step Up for Women in Journalism Initiative called on the 10th National Assembly to expedite action on passage of the Gender Equality Bill before it.

“We want to use this opportunity to call on the 10th Assembly to consider the passage of the gender bill. I believe this will serve as a guide to media managers and other managers in different sectors to begin to give consideration to women.”

Godwin, who is also the Guardian Newspaper Correspondent in Rivers State, advocated that women should be treated as professionals, charging women to push themselves and have the right mentality towards work without giving excuses in order to fit in to leadership capacities.

“I want to also ask that women should be treated as professionals, not based on gender. When you treat women as professionals, making them believe in themselves, they will be able to explore the gift, the potential, the talent in them but when you treat them as a gender, relegating them to the backstage, it will really affect their zeal to do more.”  

The Gender Equality Bill, which was introduced to the Senate by Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South) in 2021, has passed second reading at the Senate.

According to the sponsor, Senator Olujimi, the bill is seeking equal rights for women, men and persons living with disabilities, and create a conducive atmosphere for women and persons with disabilities when it is finally passed.

The keynote speaker also advised young female journalists, who are new in the industry to go in with passion without putting money as their priority in order to be successful in the field, harping on the need for ongoing capacity building for media practitioners.

“Come into the Media industry with passion. Do not come looking at money. With money in your heart, you may not be able to achieve great success, and would not go far but if you come to Journalism with passion and desire to make an impact in society, when you see your stories published it makes you happy.”

“When you see lives being transformed, when you see your human angle stories touching lives, you get happy and excited; that will give you a good footing.”  

“There is also a need for training and retraining, there is a need for exposure. They should not be satisfied with the level they are. There is a need for the desire to do more. They should have mentors, link up and network and re-evaluate their circles. They should also be determined to go all and do more of the investigative stories, not just the who said and how it was said.”  

Also speaking, the special guest of honour, Stella Din-Jacob, who is the Director of News at Television Continental (TVC), said women should put themselves forward to show that they can be leaders, advising women to set targets for themselves and work towards achieving it.

“If women don’t put themselves forward to show that indeed they can do it very well and they can do it in such a way that would show what it is, the kind of stuff they are made of, then we are poorer for it in this business. We’ll just sit down and assume that a woman cannot do it. So, we should prove that women can do it.”

On her part, convener of the programme, Karina Igonikon, who is the Bureau Chief of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), said the event is organised to build champions that will make impact in the newsroom, disclosing that the seminar was aimed to amplifying the capacity of women to take up leadership roles in the newsroom.

“We want to build champions in the newsroom. Champions that would lead thoughts in the newsroom. Champions that will make impact in the newsroom.”

“We found out that there are a lot of women journalists; a lot of women that make up the newsroom. But when it comes to leading the newsroom, we see that there’s a bias towards the men.

She noted that the event was aimed at interrogating the debilitating factors that hamper career growth for women, asserting that this would help with sourcing solutions to the situation with a view to opening up the space for women to prove their mettle in media practice.  

“So, we want to look at what are the challenges facing women, such that we have an equal number of women in the newsroom but when these opportunities come, as it were, it is not there. So, we wanted to interrogate if this is actually true.”

“Are there no women leading the newsroom and even if they are, what are the challenges they are facing? Those that are yet to come into that opportunity, what challenges are they facing because we believe that once the challenges are now identified, we can now proffer solutions to it.”

“We want to conscientize and sensitize them to the fact that in as much as you want to be counted, you have to build your capacity to be counted, to fit into that position when that opportunity comes.

“So, we want to tell them that they can be leaders in their newsroom. They should embrace and push themselves to occupying these positions when it comes, and then make the most count, because the society depends on the strength of the newsroom.”

“So, if the newsroom is the one that panders to the wishes of politicians or does not really take care of the issues that society wants addressed, then it is a weak newsroom, it is a weak society but when women who make up the newsroom are empowered, they are strengthened and they are aware that they can lead the newsroom, we’ll make impact that we desire.”  

The panelists at the seminar were the Publisher of Verbatim Magazine, Clarice Azuatalam, an On-Air-Personality (OAP) with Nigerian Info, Wazobia FM and Cool FM, Chioma Ezenwafor, and Director NTA Network Centre, Port Harcourt, Seanam Bamigboye, who took time to dissect the issues raised at the event.