*Photo: Professor Ismael Adegboyega Ibraheem*
The J F Ade Ajayi Auditorium of the University of Lagos was filled to the brim December 18th as Ismael Adegboyega Ibraheem Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies UNILAG made history as the first alumnus of the Department of Mass Communication to deliver his inaugural address.
Ismael began charting this glorious path when he joined the Civil Liberties Organization CLO in 1990 after graduation. He rose quickly to become the in-house media expert both as the Editor of Liberty, and as an activist, creating a unique blend of exploring the power and manpower of the media and social advocacy to contest the civic space with military dictatorship.
With two Master’s degrees in Mass Communication( UNILAG and Leicester) and a PhD, he returned to his alma mater after the restoration of democracy in Nigeria. As at yesterday, he has supervised over 200 undergraduate dissertations, 140 Masters and PGD and over 150 PhD theses. He reframed the fall of the Nigerian press from its esteemed position as the Fourth Estate of the Realm to, in the words of Professor Ralph Akinfeleye, “the Fourth Estate of the Wreck”.
This perilous state of affairs, with the egregious encroachment of the social media and fake news genre, he defined as Casino Journalism.
His lecture titled Casino Journalism and the End of History is a wake up call to the Nigerian Press, media scholars and educators, activists to get back to work and embrace the challenges of rebuilding the press, engaging the civic space and restoring the historical mission of the Press which is to build a free and democratic society. ” The pervasive challenges facing journalism in Nigeria today demanded a direct and bold response” he asserted.
The hall filled with prominent activists like Ayo Obe, former CLO President, Dr Tunde Akanni, Dr Ademola Azeez Provost of Federal College of Education+Technical) Akoka, eminent journalists like Najeem Jimoh, Mikail Mumuni, and Bolaji Abdullahi, former Minister of Sports, retired scholars and denizens of the Unilag and Akoka academic community; the lecture was beamed to the world by zoom. Forty scholars and former CLO activists like Professor Omolade Adunbi and Anselm Chidi Odinkalu zoomed in.
You can ask AI ChatGPT for the meaning of Casino Journalism. Professor Ibraheem takes the credit. I am proud to say that about twelve former CLO activists who came in straight from their NYSC and worked with me with all the risks involved are either professors in prominent universities all over the world or PhD holders thriving in different fields in Nigeria.
You can win by taking Nigeria seriously and working to consolidate democracy. They are doing just that.
*Honourable Abdul Oroh,journalist,former member of the House of Representatives was Executive Director at the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO)
