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 workplace in Abuja on Friday, reaffirming the partnership between the 2 organisations.
During the go to, CJID Chief Executive Officer Dapo Olorunyomi referred to as for better scrutiny of expertise firms, arguing that their management over digital communication platforms had created new accountability challenges for journalists and civil society.
He illustrated the issue with the case of Mohammed Yusuf, a dealer in Ilorin, Kwara State, who misplaced about ₦150,000 after responding to a sponsored TikTok commercial providing a grant from OPay, a fee firm.
Mr Olorunyomi mentioned the dealer misplaced nearly all of the capital for his enterprise after following the directions within the commercial.
“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 mentioned.
“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 mentioned CJID’s accountability work had more and more targeted on expertise platforms as a result of they decide what customers see, take away content material and implement guidelines governing public speech, usually by methods which might be tough for residents to scrutinise.
Mr Olorunyomi mentioned Luminate’s assist had helped CJID broaden investigative reporting throughout West Africa and develop its work on digital expertise, synthetic intelligence and knowledge dysfunction.
He mentioned functions for the Centre’s Platform Accountability Reporting Fellowship had risen from about 800 in 2025, when solely 15 fellows might be chosen, to greater than 1,000 this yr.
The programme educated 35 fellows and commissioned 18 investigations, he mentioned.
The investigations had been compiled in a report titled “Digital Harms in Nigeria,” which paperwork instances of on-line fraud, abusive digital lending practices and dangerous content material on social media platforms.
He mentioned a faux electoral fee portal was additionally suspended, whereas Citizens’ Gavel initiated authorized motion in opposition to Telegram primarily based on findings about exploitation networks.
However, he cautioned that such responses didn’t essentially imply the underlying issues 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 mentioned.
He mentioned CJID deliberate to return to instances documented within the report and ship particular, dated requests to Meta, TikTok, X and Telegram, with the responses to be revealed.
Mr Olorunyomi additionally highlighted the centre’s work on synthetic intelligence by DUBAWA’s audio verification instrument, a WhatsApp fact-checking chatbot and the Nigeria AI Collective, which brings collectively civil society organisations, journalists, lecturers and expertise professionals.
He mentioned greater than 600 folks from the media, civil society, universities and the expertise sector had been concerned within the collective, whereas seven civil society organisations had obtained advocacy grants and 70 communication lecturers had obtained assist to include AI into their educating.
He mentioned CJID was additionally working with companions throughout West Africa to digitise newspaper archives and develop fashions that perceive 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 mentioned.
In her reflection, Malanie Hui, Luminate’s chief govt officer, counseled CJID’s work on synthetic intelligence innovation, analysis and governance, whereas figuring out transparency, accountability and misinformation as persevering with challenges.
She mentioned Luminate would proceed supporting the Nigeria AI Collective and efforts to develop Nigeria’s synthetic intelligence ecosystem.
Ms Hui mentioned African international locations ought to have the capability to form the worldwide AI economic system moderately than stay shoppers of applied sciences developed elsewhere.
READ ALSO: CJID launches Living Archives Initiative to preserve Africa’s media history
She pointed to the position of regulators, staff and innovators in shaping the continent’s digital future and mentioned Luminate would assist their efforts.
She additionally referred to as for equitable possession of digital infrastructure and establishments, arguing that significant participation within the expertise sector should lengthen past entry to incorporate affect over choices that form the continent’s future.
Ms Hui mentioned fairness means shifting past participation alone. It means having significant affect over the infrastructure, the establishments, the partnerships, the alternatives that may decide Africa’s digital future, she mentioned.
CJID works with Luminate on synthetic intelligence analysis, innovation and governance by the Nigeria AI Collective. The centre coordinates the collective’s AI governance efforts, working with civil society organisations and the media to look at the consequences of synthetic intelligence on the knowledge ecosystem and society.
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