To celebrate Kadaria Ahmed as she attains the golden age of 50, friends and well-wishers of the accomplished editor and broadcaster will gather in her honour at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, on Saturday, December 16, from 10:00 a.m.

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is expected to deliver the key note address and also take part in a panel discussion with Japhet Omojuwa, Simon Kolawole and Dapo Olorunyomi around the theme of Media Renewal in Nigeria.

A high point of the ceremony will be the public presentation of the book titled 50 Voices – The best of STWK Hosted by Kadaria. The book is a distillation of interviews conducted on “Straight Talk with Kadaria”, a talk show which ran on Channels TV.

Activities around the celebration began last month when Ahmed’s company, Daria Media, announced a mentorship programme that includes training and scholarships for young women interested in forging a path in journalism.

Facilitators included former BBC journalist Ben Williams (now with Beyond Broadcasting, a company that trains staff at Aljazeera, the BBC and many other media houses around the globe); Dapo Olorunyomi, founder of Premium Times, and Ahmed.

Three female participants will become recipients of the inaugural Mamman Marshal Scholarship for Women in Journalism to be presented at the event by the Vice President. The award is named after Kadaria Ahmed’s father, who is described as a forward-thinking man well ahead of his times.

The Daria Workshop Series, Daria Media had said in a statement, “is a training platform for budding journalists; helping them to connect to the reality of journalism practice, clear out illusions and identify their unique niche and place in the continued existence of their field of endeavour.”

Ahmed was formerly a senior producer, journalist and acting editor with the BBC. She was Co-founder and Media consultant for Blue Communications EMEA from 2003 to 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, she worked with Shoreline Energy International as head of Corporate Communications and Resort Group Limited as group head of Corporate Communications. She was editor at Timbuktu Media, publishers of Next Newspaper. Between 2011 and 2016, she worked with Africa Practice R & B and Reinvent Media Ltd. as associate director and partner, respectively. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in communications from Bayero University, Kano and a Master’s degree in television from Goldsmiths’ College, University of London.

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