By Odogwu Emeka Odogwu

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka has won the hosting rights of the 23rd International Conference/ Annual General Meeting of African Council for Communication Education, ACCE). This hosting right was awarded to the Department of Mass Communication of the University.

The Head of the Department, Prof Chinwe Uzochukwu disclosed this in a press statement made available to newsmen. The event takes place in October, 2022.

According to the statement, the event is an annual ritual done jointly with the Annual General meeting where stakeholders and experts converge for cross fertilization of ideas on dominant ideology which every media outfit is expected to reflect in the ambit of national interest.

It also stated that the 2022 conference has as its theme: "Communicating Science, Technology and Innovation in Times of Economic Distress, terror and a global pandemic; while its pre-conference research workshop focuses as: Mainstreaming Child rights into the unbundled Communication programmes of Nigerian Universities - Prospects and challenges."

The statement further disclosed that stakeholders at the conference would critically examine how different branches of communication including advertising, broadcasting, films, new media among others could be tooled to proffer remedial measures to the challenges of developing Nigeria and other African nations.

"The conference is primed to explore the place of science, technology and innovations including the emerging ones such as genomic, biotechnology, synthetic biology, Nano technology and artificial intelligence and robotic; towards remedying Nigeria's Health, security, environmental and economic crisis."

While the Department expressed optimism at successful hosting of the annual event, it called for support, sponsorship as well as partnership from government, non governmental bodies as well international organizations.

Reports have it that ACCE is the biggest professional body that unites communication stakeholders from different media outfits as well as scholars from distinct universities and polytechnics in Nigeria and other African countries.

It also reports that it is the major umbrella that brings all communication stakeholders together in Nigeria and has great influence in the output of mass media outfits, practitioners and scholars in Nigeria and the entire African continent.

Prof. Uzochukwu already set up a local conference organizing committee led by Dr Obiorah Edogor with a charge to make the conference memorable.