Adeniyi Joins Chinese Belt and Road Media Council

Segun James

Chairman of THISDAY Editorial Board, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, will today in Beijing, China, join other senior media professionals from 25 countries across the world for the inaugural session of the Council of the Belt and Road News Network (BRNN). The Council will serve as the decision-making organ of BRNN.

In the letter of nomination addressed to THISDAY/ARISE Chairman, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, in January this year, the president of Peoples Daily, Mr. Li Baoshan, wrote that the invitation extended to Adeniyi was because of the “importance and influence” of THISDAY newspaper in Nigeria and across Africa.
Peoples Daily is the biggest media group in China and the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party.

BRNN, according to Li, “will build an open and cooperative platform under the Belt and Road Initiative” with the aim of promoting “mutual assistance, collaboration and exchanges among members.”

The Belt and Road Initiative is a Chinese foreign policy thrust for massive investment in infrastructure in more than a hundred countries across Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Latin America in “a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future.”
Apart from China, some other countries being represented on the BRNN Council include United Kingdom, France, Spain, Indonesia, Mexico, Netherlands, Egypt and South Africa.

Adeniyi, who spoke at the August 2016 China-Africa Public Diplomacy Forum in Tanzania, as well as at the 2017 and 2018 editions of Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road in China, will today share the African perspective at a roundtable discussion session preceding the signing of the BRNN Council Charter.