STOCKHOLM - A Nigerian journalist, Yusuf Anka, Thursday won the Global Shining Light Award for 2023. At an event held in Gothenburg, Sweden, Mr Anka’s documentary on the BBC Africa Eye was adjudged the joint best among over 400 entries from over 80 countries.
Published in 2022, the documentary was titled ‘The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara‘. The report exposed the gravity of an underreported crisis: the atrocities of bandit terrorists in northern Nigeria.
Mr Anka was, however, not able to physically attend the event because he was denied an entry visa by the Swedish embassy in Nigeria, a BBC official said at the event.
The Global Shining Light Award (GSLA) is organised by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) every two years to honour watchdog journalism in developing or transitioning countries, carried out under threat or in perilous conditions.
Mr Anka’s report revealed the true scale and horror of the violence that has engulfed Nigeria’s north-west. It shows how thousands were killed, a million people displaced, and hundreds of schools closed in northern Nigeria.
Mr Anka, 27, is a graduate of law from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. As an undergraduate, he began reporting on the conflict in Zamfara for HumAngle and, in 2019, began working with BBC Africa Eye on a documentary film about the violence.
