Mr. Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda, has been appointed chairman of Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) by the Board of Directors at the Board’s meeting held in Accra, Ghana on January 8 and 9, 2014.
Mr. Ojo is a board member of a number of local, regional and international human rights and media development organisations including the Uganda-based African Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) and the International Media Support (IMS) based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Until June 2013, he was the Convenor (Chair) of the governing council of the Canada-based organisation, IFEX, the world’s biggest network of free expression advocacy organisation.
He replaces Soyata Maiga from Mali, whose tenure as board chair just ended.
Mr. Sulemana Braimah was appointed as the new Executive Director of the organisation at the management level. He replaced Prof. Kwame Karikari who had been the Executive Director of the organisation for the past 16years.
The board praised Prof. Kwame Karikari for his commendable leadership of the MFWA for the past 16years and commended the organisation for its work on promoting the safety of journalists and media development in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire during the political crisis and in the ongoing democratic recovery processes in those countries.
The board issued a resolution at the end of its meeting in which it expressed concern about the falling standards of professionalism in media practice in the West Africa region. The Board also expressed deep concern about the serious challenges posed by extremism, terrorism and drug trafficking to media freedom and practice in West Africa and called on national governments, regional bodies and civil society groups in West Africa to work collaboratively to address the problem,” the resolution stated.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is a regional independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in Accra, Ghana to defend and promote the rights and freedoms of the media, and generally, to help expand the boundaries of freedom of speech and expression in West Africa.
