Meet the 2023 FRLP participants.
Sarah Ayeku is a broadcast journalist who is passionate about telling stories that inspire and evoke change in communities. Over the past four years, her works on the plight of minorities and under-reported communities in Nigeria has gathered traction. She is a news editor/ producer, programme presenter and wweekend anchor at TVCNews.
Blessing Oladunjoye publishes with BONews Service, an online development news platform dedicated to women and persons with disabilities. She is a graduate of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) with over 7 years of experience in the media. She won the Impact Award from the British Council Programme, for her work on rights and access to justice for women with disabilities in Nigeria.
A journalist and gender advocate, Ijeoma Okereke-Adagba, currently works with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) where she heads a social accountability programme called UDEME. Through the programme, she initiated the U-Monitors project which has trained over 300 campus students on fiscal and budgetary transparency to enhance good governance in Nigeria. She is a first-class graduate of Mass Communication from the University of Jos, Nigeria.
Martha Agas has written several reports on child rights, gender issues, and the impact of conflicts on women and children. The fellow of Taz Foundation and the International Center for Journalists/World Health Organisation on Violence against Children is a principal correspondent with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) with a degree and master’s degree in mass communication from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
With about 14 years of experience as a sports journalist, Yemi Olus-Galadima currently works with Making of Champions, a platform that promotes the strides made by Nigerian athletes. She emerged first runner-up in the sports writing category of DAME Awards 2011 and has a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and a master’s in political science from the University of Lagos.
A journalist from Adamawa, Nigeria, with five years’ experience in radio, online and print media, Zubaida Baba Ibrahim currently heads the humanitarian and development desk at HumAngle Media where she writes about the displacements and humanitarian crises in conflict-affected communities of North-East Nigeria. She also trains early-career journalists on the fundamentals of solutions reporting.
Fortunate Ozo is a reporter, newscaster, producer, and editor Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). She served as the assistant secretary and secretary of Nigerian Labour Congress Women Committee between 2013-2017 and Chairman Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) from 2013-2021, all in Ebonyi state. Ozo is currently the Chairman Nigeria Union of Journalists NTA Abakaliki Chapel.
A news editor with TV360 Nigeria in Lagos, Folashade Ogunrinde covers business, health, and politics, using human-angle narratives. Ogunrinde was a runner up, online category, at the 2022 Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting with her story – ‘Policies and the people: How the Lagos State Government’s mega city drive is worsening its housing deficit’. She is studying for a master’s degree in mass communication at the University of Lagos.
Karina Igonikon has covered Southern Nigeria for the British Broadcasting Corporation World Service Pidgin Service since 2017. Through one of her human angle stories while with the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), a missing child was reunited with her parents after seven years of search. Karina has a first degree in mass communication from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology and a master’s in media and communications from the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos.
Victoria Bamas is a journalist and editor with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR). She has reported from Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Benin Republic, India, and Ethiopia and serves as a core member of the African Science Literacy Network team. She is the pioneer editor and lead the FactCheckHub start-up, she is a founding member of the Nigeria Fact-Checkers’ Coalition (NFC) and is active in the Nigeria literary space where she has played active roles in organising and hosting several festivals.
Maryam Abdullahi began her journalism career as a campus reporter while at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto state. Abdullahi who currently works with TheCable Newspaper as a gender, inclusion and development reporter was named the 2019 Campus Journalist of the Year award by Youth Digest Journalism Award for Nigerian university students and has received a nomination for the PwC Media Excellence Award in 2022.
Olufisoye Adenitan, a journalist with over ten years experience reports issues of women, girls, and persons with disability. The 2017 African Journalism fellow, Tony Elumelu Foundation has won several media grants locally and internationally and currently works with Radio Nigeria as a reporter and an editor. She has also established an NGO; FARDEF which specialises in human development and advocates the inclusion of women and persons with disabilities in governance and electoral processes.