Don’t dismiss your ideas –Media expert, Otufodunrin

Otufodunrin

A media expert, Lekan Otufodunrin, has adviced the general public that they shouldn’t dismiss their

ideas.

Otufodunrin, who has over thirty years of practice in the media, gave this important advice while speaking at a One-Day Consultative/Media Parley On Advancing IDP Issues organized by Journalists For Christ (JFC) in conjunction with the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and Brot fur die Welt on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at Ogba, Lagos.

Delivering his welcome address in his capacity as the President/Founder, JFC, Otufodunrin began by declaring that “when ideas come to you, don’t dismiss them. When the idea of JFC came to me in the 80s when I was still at The Punch where I began my media career, some people said are there Christian journalists, are there journalists that are born again?”

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The idea stayed with him nonetheless, he continued, and at a time when he began to feel frustrated while still at Punch that his colleagues were travelling out of the country as if travelling was specially reserved for some people and he had yet to travel, he made enquiries, spoke to Edaeten Ojo, Founder, Media Rights Agenda, got a three months fellowship to Cardiff and while there, the JFC idea became more practicable to him as a Nigerian media colleague who was also at Cardiff while he was there, Wale Adedayo, told him that “you’re a Christian and there’s this Christian organization, WACC, you should be a member of.”

So after his fellowship ended, he went to WACC’s office in London and the lady he met there was so happy he wanted to be a member she started dancing for joy.

According to her, they had no Nigerian member right then despite their inclination to have Nigerian members which was all the sadder to them as their immediate former international president, Christopher Kolade, was a Nigerian and she hoped Otufodunrin would stay as a member.

Though they wanted Nigerian members and now had the opportunity of having at least one, she nevertheless had the gall to tell him he had to pay a membership fee which might have dissuaded some other people considering that the organization had confessed that they needed their membership.

But not Otufodunrin.

He paid on the spot and explained his willingness and eagerness to pay as “it’s sensible to join such associations even if you have to pay a membership fee.”

Continuing, Otufodunrin disclosed the import the tale of his creation of JFC and WACC membership as being that it was because of them he was able to organize the media parley which was just a part of the current project on IDPs which he’s coordinating for WACC.

“This is our fifth project for WACC,” he said. “We want to see to what extent we can use media platforms to advance IDP issues as a media-based organization and IDPs are of interest to us and WACC hence our latest collaboration on IDPs. We can’t cover Nigeria for now but we hope to do so through Lagos and Abuja.

“IDP issues are reemerging and we want to ensure their basic rights to shelter, healthcare, food and so on are catered for as government already budgeted for them.”

He concluded that a media parley on advancing IDP issues would also hold in Abuja and that JFC does everything that promotes social justice in the media and are Christian-related.