A delegation from Luminate Group, led by its Chief Executive Officer, Melanie Hui, visited the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) at its new office in Abuja on Friday, reaffirming the partnership between the two organisations.
During the visit, CJID Chief Executive Officer Dapo Olorunyomi called for greater scrutiny of technology companies, arguing that their control over digital communication platforms had created new accountability challenges for journalists and civil society.
|
|
He illustrated the problem with the case of Mohammed Yusuf, a trader in Ilorin, Kwara State, who lost about ₦150,000 after responding to a sponsored TikTok advertisement offering a grant from OPay, a payment company.
Mr Olorunyomi said the trader lost almost all the capital for his business after following the instructions in the advertisement.
|
|
|
|---|
“The advertisement Mohammed saw was not hidden in some dark corner of the internet. It was placed, paid for and approved inside the systems of one of the most powerful companies in the world,” he said.
“Had a newspaper run that advertisement, we would know whom to hold responsible, from the editor and the publisher to the regulator who licenses them. With a platform, those lines are much harder to draw, and the citizen who has been wronged is often left with nowhere to turn.”
He said CJID’s accountability work had increasingly focused on technology platforms because they determine what users see, remove content and enforce rules governing public speech, often through systems that are difficult for citizens to scrutinise.
Stay Ahead with Premium Times
Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting.
Add as a preferred source on Google
Mr Olorunyomi said Luminate’s support had helped CJID expand investigative reporting across West Africa and develop its work on digital technology, artificial intelligence and information disorder.
He said applications for the Centre’s Platform Accountability Reporting Fellowship had risen from about 800 in 2025, when only 15 fellows could be selected, to more than 1,000 this year.
The programme trained 35 fellows and commissioned 18 investigations, he said.
The investigations were compiled in a report titled “Digital Harms in Nigeria,” which documents cases of online fraud, abusive digital lending practices and harmful content on social media platforms.
He said a fake electoral commission portal was also suspended, while Citizens’ Gavel initiated legal action against Telegram based on findings about exploitation networks.
However, he cautioned that such responses did not necessarily mean the underlying problems had been resolved.
“A deleted account or a lawsuit tells us that evidence produced a response. It does not yet tell us that the harm has stopped, that Mohammed has his money back, or that the system that failed him has changed,” he said.
He said CJID planned to return to cases documented in the report and send specific, dated requests to Meta, TikTok, X and Telegram, with the responses to be published.
Mr Olorunyomi also highlighted the centre’s work on artificial intelligence through DUBAWA’s audio verification tool, a WhatsApp fact-checking chatbot and the Nigeria AI Collective, which brings together civil society organisations, journalists, academics and technology professionals.
He said more than 600 people from the media, civil society, universities and the technology sector were involved in the collective, while seven civil society organisations had received advocacy grants and 70 communication lecturers had received support to incorporate AI into their teaching.
He said CJID was also working with partners across West Africa to digitise newspaper archives and develop models that understand Nigerian Pidgin and Ghanaian English.
“The systems now being built will increasingly shape how the world understands Nigeria, Ghana and the Sahel. They will draw on someone’s archive and learn someone’s language, and we would like at least some of those archives and languages to be ours,” he said.
In her reflection, Malanie Hui, Luminate’s chief executive officer, commended CJID’s work on artificial intelligence innovation, research and governance, while identifying transparency, accountability and misinformation as continuing challenges.
She said Luminate would continue supporting the Nigeria AI Collective and efforts to develop Nigeria’s artificial intelligence ecosystem.
Ms Hui said African countries should have the capacity to shape the global AI economy rather than remain consumers of technologies developed elsewhere.
READ ALSO: CJID launches Living Archives Initiative to preserve Africa’s media history
She pointed to the role of regulators, workers and innovators in shaping the continent’s digital future and said Luminate would support their efforts.
She also called for equitable ownership of digital infrastructure and institutions, arguing that meaningful participation in the technology sector must extend beyond access to include influence over decisions that shape the continent’s future.
Ms Hui said equity means moving beyond participation alone. It means having meaningful influence over the infrastructure, the institutions, the partnerships, the choices that will determine Africa’s digital future, she said.
CJID works with Luminate on artificial intelligence research, innovation and governance through the Nigeria AI Collective. The centre coordinates the collective’s AI governance efforts, working with civil society organisations and the media to examine the effects of artificial intelligence on the information ecosystem and society.
Discover more from Premium Times Nigeria
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
More News
