CJID Unveils Finalists Of The 2022 Alfred Opubor Next-Gen Campus Reporter Awards

Press Release:

The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, CJID, is pleased to announce the 2022 Alfred Opubor Next-Gen Campus Reporter Awards finalists. The Award Ceremony, scheduled to hold on Friday, 2nd December, aims to celebrate and inspire outstanding campus journalists who spotlight social issues and contribute to solution pathways through storytelling.

Following six weeks of rigorous selection and review of entries by a five-person panel of judges spread across the academia, newsroom and media development sector, 25 outstanding entries were selected as best across nine competitive award categories.

This year’s edition of the Awards generated 164 entries from campus journalists in 53 tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The southwest region generated the most entries with 74, followed by the northwest with 38, northcentral with 21, south-south with eight, and southeast and northeast with six entries each.

The Next-Gen Campus Reporter Awards is named after the late Alfred Opubor in honour of his pioneering contributions to journalism. Professor Opubor was Nigeria’s first professor of mass communication. The maiden edition of the Awards was held in 2018.

First-place winners and the overall best campus journalist for the year will be revealed on the 2nd of December at the Treasure Suites Hotel, Central Business District, Abuja.

Below are the award categories:

  1. Best Budgetary Tracking/Procurement Story
  2. Best Campus Investigative Reporter of the Year
  3. Best Conflict Story
  4. Best Election Observation Report
  5. Best Environment/Climate Change Report
  6. Best Fact-Check
  7. Best Gender Story
  8. Best Health Reporting
  9. Sports Writer of the Year

The top-three finalists for each category and their entries are:

Best Budgetary Tracking/Procurement Story:

i) Abdulwasiu Mujeeb Idowu (Inside Sokoto’s multi-million naira school of works left to rot for years)

ii) Rabiu Musa (Investigation: Tales of anguish, death trail on abandoned Garko-Kibiya road)

iii) Sunday Awosoro (Without consulting residents, lawmaker facilitates N115million ‘health centres’. Now they’re used by termites, bushes)

Best Conflict Story:

i) Abiodun Jamiu (With ₦3,500, Sokoto Residents Buy Locally-made Guns As Insecurity Spikes In Nigeria’s Northwest)

ii) Adebayo Abdulrahman (Beyond Numbers (I): Distraught Family, Scheduled Wedding … Victims Of Owo Massacre)

iii) Muhammed Auwal Ibrahim (Special Report: Kaduna residents laments over telecoms shutdown)

Best Election Observation Report:

i) Omoniyi Jeremiah Oluwaferanmi (#EkitiDecides: Daniel in the Lion’s Den)

ii) Taiwo Fatola (#OsunDecides: I Was A Witness While Osun Was Deciding)

iii) Vindication Alawode (An Election Masqueraded By Fear And My Unpleasant Observer Experience)

Best Environment/Climate Change Report:

i) Abdulrasheed Hammad (How Charcoal, indiscriminate logging contribute to deforestation in Kwara State)

ii) Abdulwasiu Olokooba (How miners put community in environmental degradation, violate Child Rights Act in Ekiti State)

iii) Mariam Hamzat (Fleeing Intruders: Despite Strict Laws, Herders, Poachers Tainting Old Oyo National Park)

Best Fact-Check:

i) Adebayo Abdulrahman (Fact-check: No, Buhari Did Not Lift 10.5 Million Nigerians Out Of Poverty In Two Years)

ii) Muhammed Bello Buhari (Fact-Check: How true are some claims made by Peter Obi on Channels TV’s Politics Today?)

iii) Muktar Balogun (Is Lagos largest economy in Africa? Fact-checking Tinubu’s claims on governorship term)

Best Gender Story:

i) Abdulganiyu Abdulrahman (How Hijab Crisis Interrupted Education in Kwara State)

ii) Mariam Hamzat (Everyday Hazard, Low Financial Support and Self-Medication: Plights of Women in Oyo Garri Producing Community)

iii) Zainab Yetunde Adam (How Borno Women Struggle to Overcome the Travails of Insurgency)

Best Health Reporting:

i) Abdulwaheed Sofiullahi (Inside Kano community where children drop out of school due to lack of potable water)

ii) Tijani Abdulkabeer (Health tech: A non-profit is using artificial intelligence to link blood donors)

iii) Zainab Yetunde Adam (Lack of Ambulance Emergency Services Hamper Universal Health Coverage in Rural Borno Communities)

Sports Writer of the Year:

i) Confidence Chibueze (Uyo Township Stadium, Now A Shadow Of Its Former Self )

ii) Hassan Abdulsalam (SPECIAL REPORT: Poor Sports facilities in Ogun tertiary institutions pose great danger to talents discovery)

iii) Omoniyi Jeremiah Oluwaferanmi (ANALYSIS: Super Eagles in the last decade under different managers)

About the Next-Gen Campus Journalism Project

Since its creation in 2017, the Campus Journalism project of CJID (formerly Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, PTCIJ) has continued to build the capacities of campus journalists by giving them a foothold in the Nigerian media industry. Campus Journalism has established its presence in over 30 tertiary institutions in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The project has guided students with a burning passion for journalism to successfully navigate Nigeria’s media landscape by training them on basic news reporting, data journalism, fact-checking journalism, investigative reporting, media ethics, gender-sensitive reporting and evolving media business model. Trained campus journalists are mentored and encouraged to publish their works on the Campus Reporter platform and other reputable local and international mainstream media platforms.