FOR the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan to achieve large-scale sustainable development, communicating adequately with the people, especially at the grassroots, is a crucial ingredient and community media has the capacity to do that.This is because community media could reach sections of the country not covered by the mainstream government and commercial media. And to achieve the goal of massively communicating and engaging with the people including speeding up the process of the establishment of community radios across the country, the president must fast-track the take-off of the issuance of licenses for community radios as a follow-up to his pronouncement on community radio in 2010.This was the position of participants at the end of Alfred Opubor International Conference on Community media held at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, recently.'A society that hears its people is a society that will transform itself. For sustainable development to occur on the scale that is required for the success of the transformation agenda of the present administration, there has to occur the 'massification' of communication, which can only happen through community media'Community media will reach sections of the country that are not covered by the mainstream government and commercial media. This will help address some of the security challenges in our polity.'The Federal government, through a Presidential pronouncement in October 2010, gave the go-ahead for the licensing of community radio in Nigeria. It is of deep concern to stakeholders and general public that after more than one year, the government directive has not been implemented.The three day conference, with the theme, 'If community is the answer, what is the question', which was opened by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor I. F. Adewole, represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Prof. I. A Olayinka, was held in honour of the late Alfred Esimatemi Opubor, the first Nigerian Professor of Mass Communication, to commemorate his 75th (Posthumous) birthday.Prof. Cecil Blake of the University of Pittsburgh, USA, delivered the keynote address titled 'Trail Blazers, Legends and the Making of a Discipline: Alfred Opubor and Communication Studies in Africa'. Thereafter, there were other papers presented on various areas of community media by both scholars and practitioners, in plenary and syndicate sessions.Also at the conference, in order to keep alive some of the legacies of Professor Alfred Opubor especially his contribution to the teaching and development of mass communication in Nigeria, it was agreed at by the participants that a Professor Alfred Opubor chair for research and teaching of community communication be endowed.In the same vein, the participants said that a proper understanding of Community media and their associated processes is required for overcoming the problems of proper integration of rural communities into the processes of national development.'Community Radio and other community communication systems are crucial to strengthening cultural identities and building communities, without which genuine development cannot be realised, much less sustained.'Community Radio and other community communication systems are key to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, especially the immense challenges of Child and Maternal Mortality and Climate Change Adaptation.'Upcoming media scholars are not adequately equipped with contextual communication research methodologies that are needed for understanding community media issues.'The event, organised by the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, African Languages Technology Initiative, Institute for Media and Society and the Nigeria Community Radio Coalition, with support from UNICEF, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Bifocals Communications, was attended by eminent scholars in the field of communication studies, representatives of civil society groups, grassroots communities, the media, among others, drawn from Nigeria, other African countries, Europe and the United States of America.At the end of the conference it was also resolved that scholars and policymakers should adopt strong African ethical principles to think deeply and thereby understand how the use of communication to overcome the problems in rural communities.'Rural and other grassroots communities should continue their current efforts in establishment of community radio stations. In the process, they should pool human and material resources together as part of their strategies for good governance and sustainability of the upcoming radio stations.'Communication research by the academia should be more rigorous as a way of helping to better understand the problems of effective communication with and within our rural and grassroots communities.'Communication scholars should embark on a structured and sustained mentoring programme in contextual communication research methodologies so that upcoming scholars can effectively engage these methodologies and use them to achieve much better understanding of community communication needs.The participants pleaded that the President's directive on the issuance of Community Radio licenses is implemented without any further delay.It was also resolved that existing mainstream media should develop and implement strategies for improved coverage of rural and grassroots communities.'Stakeholders should ensure that the advocacy for Community radio and other community media take advantage of new technologies and ensure that there is appropriate capacity building in the various communities to fully exploit these new technologies.'Adequate funding should be made available for research into community communication issues. In this connection, academic institutions, government agencies such as Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF), Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF); donor organizations and other development partners should make funding support accessible to community communication researchers in all parts of the country.
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