Nigerian Journalists Win Open Knowledge Journal Award

Abiodun Adewal, a journalist with Punch, was awarded second place in the 2026 Open Knowledge Journal Award, alongside Nigerian freelance journalist Rakiya Muhammad and Kenyan journalist Angelin Ochieng. The awards, organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Wikimedia Foundation, celebrated the role of journalists in creating reliable content for Wikipedia.

Muhammad won first prize for her report on West Africa's borderless women within the Yoruba sisterhood, documenting the migration of women from Ejigbo, Osun State, to Côte d'Ivoire. Adewal's work focused on Nigeria's U-19 women's cricket team, chronicling their historic campaign for the 2025 ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Malaysia.

The awards attracted 320 entries from journalists across 40 African countries, emphasizing the importance of improving representation of African stories on Wikipedia, which currently has only 3.7% of its articles in English related to Africa.