CJID launches Openness Index to strengthen press freedom 

The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) on Thursday launched its Openness Index report.

The initiative, supported by the embassy of The Netherlands in Nigeria, is Nigeria’s first-ever subnational assessment of press freedom and civic space spanning the 36 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

The findings of the CJID Openness Index, a subnational assessment of press freedom and civic space in Nigeria, reveal an uneven democratic landscape in Africa’s largest democracy.

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The CJID Index provides a state-by-state ranking of openness in Nigeria for the first time, combining perception-based and incident-based data into a composite score for each state.

The index is built on a rigorous methodology and informed by the perspectives of more than 1,110 professional journalists, media owners, publishers, and civil society actors, alongside empirical incident tracking from the CJID Press Attack Tracker. The Index offers a nuanced portrait of Nigeria’s democratic landscape.

CJID’s Chief Executive Officer, Dapo Olorunyomi, said this index is the first comprehensive attempt to systematically assess the state of openness and the conditions that enable expression, participation, and media freedom across all 36 Nigerian states and the Federal Capital Territory.

“By combining the lived experiences of over 1,100 respondents with verified incident tracking, this index offers a data‑driven picture of where openness thrives and where it is under threat. What we find is both sobering and hopeful. Openness is not a given; it is uneven, often fragile, and must be continuously protected,” Mr Olorunyomi said.

The Executive Director of CJID, Akintunde Babatunde, highlighted the broader ambitions of the project, noting that it will redefine what openness entails in a democracy.

“As we develop this into a pan-African tool, we hope to influence public discourse and policy reform across the continent. This index builds on CJID’s legacy of data-driven media freedom advocacy,” he said.

Source: DailyTrust | Read More