The 17th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture will hold on Sunday, 13 July 2025 at 5:00pm (WAT) on Zoom, with the theme “Surveillance, Safety and the Silencing of Truth.” The event will feature Angela Quintal, regional director for Africa at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), as keynote speaker alongside panellists Quinn McKew, executive director of ARTICLE 19; Fisayo Soyombo, founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ); and Sonja Smith, Associated Press correspondent. The session will be moderated by Jimeh Saleh, former editor, BBC/MacArthur Foundation Series.
Surveillance, intimidation and attacks on journalists are increasingly shaping how media is practiced in many countries. These threats deserve more attention in global conversations about democracy and civic space. This year’s lecture will interrogate how sophisticated surveillance technologies, institutionalised harassment, and shrinking press freedoms are undermining the safety of journalists and the public’s right to know.
The Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series is an annual event hosted by WSCIJ to interrogate the media’s role in shaping democracy, accountability and public discourse. Held every 13 July since 2009 to commemorate the birthday of Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature and grand patron of the Centre, the lecture engages the most pressing issues facing journalism and democracy today. Through its lectures and various interventions, WSCIJ has consistently played a vital role in strengthening democracy in Nigeria.
Signed,
Motunrayo Alaka
Executive Director/CEO, WSCIJ
