By Funmilayo Adeyemi

Nigeria is set to showcase its efforts in promoting Media and Information Literacy (MIL) at the 12th edition of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) summit, GlobalFact12.

The summit is scheduled to commence on Wednesday, June 25, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The summit, organised by the United States-based Poynter Institute, is the leading global forum for professional fact-checkers.

It will convene hundreds of media professionals, academics, and digital rights advocates from across the world to address the challenges of disinformation and misinformation in the digital era.

Temilade Onilede, Programme Manager at DUBAWA, a fact-checking platform under the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), will represent Nigeria at the summit.

Onilede was commissioned by the IFCN to present a technical paper titled “From Newsroom to Classroom: DUBAWA’s Impact in Integrating Media and Information Literacy in Nigerian Secondary Schools”.

Her presentation will highlight DUBAWA’s contributions to expanding fact-checking practices beyond newsrooms, by integrating media literacy education into secondary schools across Nigeria.

The initiative is aimed at equipping students with the skills to critically evaluate information and distinguish fact from falsehood in an increasingly complex media environment.

This year’s four-day summit will focus on the growing global concerns over disinformation, misinformation, and the manipulation of public opinion through both mass and targeted communication channels.

Onilede has previously led fact-checking workshops for journalists in The Gambia, Liberia, and across several major Nigerian cities, including Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, and Abuja.

Since its inception in 2014, the GlobalFact summit has hosted over 4,000 participants in cities such as London, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Rome, Cape Town, Oslo, Seoul, and Sarajevo.

It established itself as the world’s largest and most influential gathering of the fact-checking community.

As the international community confronts the rising threat of false information, Nigeria’s participation in GlobalFact12 reaffirms its commitment to promoting media literacy and credible journalism in the digital age.

Speaking ahead of the summit, IFCN Executive Director, Angie Holan, stated that GlobalFact12 would offer fresh perspectives on “the concepts of information, misinformation, disinformation, truth and lies floating in the public domain”. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Tosin Kolade