The Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Malam Jibrin Ndace, has called for a strategic partnership with the Royal Norwegian Embassy to strengthen media cooperation, build journalists’ capacity, combat misinformation and promote positive narratives about Nigeria, Africa and Norway.
Ndace made the call during a courtesy visit to the Norwegian Embassy in Abuja, where he said VON was seeking a mutually beneficial relationship based on professional exchanges, knowledge sharing and collaboration.
“The reason for coming first is to connect with the Embassy; we are here to connect with you, more importantly, to activate a relationship, a partnership,” he said.
He stressed the importance of collaboration in addressing the growing challenge of misinformation and disinformation.
“It is so important now that we are in the age of misinformation. Disinformation, sometimes outright lies, surrounds individual countries. So we must be very deliberate about helping to shape our own narrative as countries in our relationship,” Ndace said.
The VON Director-General also proposed journalist exchange programmes, internships and capacity-building initiatives to deepen professional understanding between both countries.
“Journalists from Voice of Nigeria have an opportunity to go to Norway so that when they go and come back, they do not just report for Voice of Nigeria, they become ambassadors,” he said.
He further sought support to strengthen VON’s fact-checking, media monitoring and research units through technology and training.
Responding, the Norwegian Embassy’s Second Secretary (Political and Humanitarian), Michelle Hovi, welcomed the initiative and reaffirmed Norway’s commitment to press freedom, editorial independence and media integrity.
“We are very happy to have you here, and happy that we can start this relationship in any way that will potentially take form,” she said.
Hovi noted that editorial integrity and fact-checking remained central to Norway’s support for journalism.
“It is key to us that there is editorial integrity for all media outlets, whether they be governmentally owned or privately funded, as long as we can tell the truth and fact-check it,” she stated.
She disclosed that the embassy had commenced support for journalist capacity building through the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).
“We recently started to fund CJID, especially for this. So that is definitely something that we are interested in, seeing how we can help Nigerians do capacity building of their own journalists,” Hovi said.
Although the embassy does not provide grants to government-owned media organisations, she identified opportunities for collaboration, particularly in engaging young people through digital platforms.
“There are definitely areas where we can see some sort of synergies. It would be interesting to do some collaboration, especially with the Gen-Zs that we have in the social media field,” she added.
Ndace said the proposed partnership would also provide Norway with a platform to showcase its activities and programmes across Africa through VON’s multilingual services.
“We always pride ourselves on the fact that when you speak to us in one language, we tell the world in nine languages. There is no media institution in Nigeria, public or private, that has that leverage,” he said.
The meeting ended with both sides expressing commitment to sustained engagement and exploring opportunities for cooperation in media development, professional exchanges and strategic communication.
