Philip Obaji Named Among Winners For Fetisov Journalism Awards

The Steering Committee of the Fetisov Journalism Awards on Wednesday named prominent Nigerian journalist and human rights campaigner, Philip Obaji Jr, among 12 winners of the 2020 edition of the awards.

Obaji emerged the third prize winner in the Outstanding Contribution to Peace category for exposing how a human trafficker used social media to market young Cameroonian girls taking refuge in Nigeria through his story for Sahara Reporters, ‘The Child Refugees Sold Through Facebook’. British journalists Richard Kent, Nick Donovan and Mohamed Aboelgheit, won the first prize in the category for exposing how a Sudanese militia known as Rapid Support Forces run a secret financial network, while Turkish journalist, Mizar Kemal, was named second prize winner for reporting on Iraq’s heavy legacy of depleted uranium.

In the last six years, Obaji, who recently named finalist in the freelance category of the 2020 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism for the third time, has shown extraordinary courage and tireless dedication to uncovering human trafficking in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and refugee camps in Nigeria. He won the Future Awards Africa Prize in Education in 2014, and the Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year in 2015.

On Wednesday, another Nigerian, Fisayo Soyombo, emerged the second prize winner in the FJA Outstanding Investigative Reporting category for his undercover reporting on Nigeria’s criminal justice system funded by The ICIR and TheCable, ahead of a team of 13 journalists from Uganda who reported how swaths of land acquired by foreign investors in Africa’s Nile River Basin created a displaced crisis in local communities. The first prize in the category was won by India’s Rohini Mohan, who exposed how sham trials in India put millions at risk of losing their citizenship.

According to the organisers, more than 280 entries from 77 countries were submitted for the global competition, and winners were selected in a two-stage judging process.

The 12 winning projects include seven individual entries from India, Turkey, Switzerland, Nigeria and the United States; two collaborative works from the United Kingdom and Uganda; and three cross-border projects produced by the teams from Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Fetisov Journalism Awards are aimed at promoting universal human values such as honesty, justice, courage and nobility through the example of outstanding journalists from around the world as their dedicated service and commitment contribute to changing the world for the better.

The awards ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland on April 22nd, 2021.