Nigerian journalists win ICFJ, Wikimedia open knowledge awards
Lagos, June 2026 (TBL Africa Two Nigerian journalists have emerged among the winners of the 2026 Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards, organised by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation.
The President of ICFJ, Ms Sharon Moshavi, disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday in Lagos.
Moshavi said the awards recognised outstanding journalists whose evidence-based reporting had helped expand access to reliable information about Africa and supported the development of Wikipedia content.
According to her, Rakiya Muhammad, a Nigerian freelance journalist, won the first-place award for her report, West Africa’s Borderless Women: Inside the Yoruba Sisterhood Linking Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, published by RM Times.
The report documents the economic contributions of Yoruba women from Ejigbo, Osun, who have built successful trading networks in Côte d’Ivoire while strengthening economic and cultural ties between the two countries.
Speaking on the award, Muhammad said the recognition had renewed her commitment to telling authentic stories that place African women at the centre of development, leadership, and social change.
Moshavi also announced that Abiodun Adewale of The Punch received the second-place award for his feature, Breaking Boundaries: How Nigeria’s U-19 Women Are Rewriting Cricket History.
The report highlights the achievements of Nigeria’s Junior Female Yellow Greens and the growing profile of women’s cricket in the country.
She added that Angeline Ochieng of Kenya’s Nation Media Group received a special mention for her report on former traditional midwives who now promote hospital deliveries to help reduce maternal deaths in rural Kenya.
According to Moshavi, 320 entries from 40 African countries were received for this year’s awards.
She said journalism and Wikipedia complement each other, noting that Wikipedia’s volunteer editors relied on credible, independent reporting to build a more comprehensive knowledge resource, while journalists benefited from the platform’s global reach.
“The awards recognise African journalists whose work is helping to strengthen the digital information ecosystem and expand public knowledge about the continent,” she said.
Moshavi added that the awards were established to celebrate quality journalism that helped bridge knowledge gaps about Africa on Wikipedia and other reliable public information platforms.
Also commenting, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Communications Officer, Anusha Alikhan, said that stories written by Africans about issues affecting the continent were essential to making Wikipedia more representative of diverse experiences and perspectives.
She said the awards formed part of the efforts by ICFJ and the Wikimedia Foundation to encourage quality journalism that helped close knowledge gaps about Africa on Wikipedia, where only 3.7 per cent of English-language articles focused on the continent.
Moshavi said the winners were selected by a panel comprising African civil society leaders, academics, Wikimedia volunteers, and representatives of ICFJ and the Wikimedia Foundation.
