Bai-Bai Sesay reports from Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Three Sierra Leonean journalists: Bai-Bai Sesay, acting editor of the Independent Observer, Tonya Musa and Salim Sahid Kamara, Lecturer and student at the Mass Communications Department, Fourah Bay College respectively are among more than 500 African journalists that were recently invited to visit the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium at Port Elizabeth in South Africa(Top photo: Bai Bai, left and Tonya).
The southern Africa MTN sponsored the reception for the visiting African journalists held at the stadium where more than 43 African countries’ representatives were addressed by the head of the 2010 World Cup Organising Committee Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Danny Jordan.
One of the biggest and most popular mobile companies was being represented at the event. This occasion saw the beginning of the 13th edition of the Highway Africa conference supported by sponsors such as MTN. The event took place on Sunday, 6th September 2009 in the city of Port Elizabeth.
Highway Africa is the largest gathering of African journalists organized annually by Highway Africa under the auspices of the Mass Communications department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.
This year’s Highway Africa theme, Reporting Africa: 2010, development and democracy, MTN chose the 48,000 capacity Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium as the venue to host the reception in order to give the African journalists a first hand information of what South Africa has to offer during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This is the first time FIFA is hosting a World Cup in Africa in 2010.
“The 2010 FIFA World Cup” will be Africa football’s crowning glory for the incredible contribution this continent’s footballers has made to the global game. We at South Africa are honoured to be hosting African’s first FIFA World Cup on behalf of the entire continent. And it’s crucial for us at the 2010 Organising Committee that we involve and engage our fellow Africans in the World Cup process”, says Jordaan.
In his address, Dr. Jordaan disclosed that fifteen thousand journalists all over the world were expected to cover the games from the ten stadiums, adding that everything was in place for the 2010 World Cup tournament.
He told media delegates to report objectively about the infrastructure, security and other things connected to the 2010 World Cup. He disclosed that organising committee of the 2010 World Cup was not happy about the way western media which were reporting about South Africa hosting the tournament.
The stadium
During their conducted tour of the stadium’s facility, the visiting African journalists praised South Africa for providing such wonderful facilities at the stadium; pointing out that they hoped the remaining nine stadia had the same facilities.
Tonya Musa and Salim Sahid Kamara confessed to this press that they were happy to be part of the media delegates from Sierra Leone invited to have first hand information about the stadium’s facility.
“Highway Africa has given us a wonderful opportunity to visit one of the World Cup Stadiums and we thank MTN for helping to arrange this great platform for us”, says Tonya Musa, a lecturer at the Mass Communications Department, Fourah Bay College.
In a brief chat with Highway Africa Director, Chris Kabwato, he told this press that they organized such tour to enable African journalists to have the chance to return to their various countries to report what they saw in one of the World Cup stadiums.
He went further to say that his fellow African colleagues would write stories, commentaries, opinions and analyses about the facilities they saw at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, one those where the 2010 World Cup would be hosted.
“We hope as part of this year theme: Reporting Africa: 2010, development and democracy, we believed our colleagues are happy to get first hand information about one of the stadium facility where the World Cup will be played”, he said.
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