My Life in Brief
Musikilu Mojeed, currently a Ford Foundation International Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism of The City University of New York, studied Mass Communication at the Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic and Communication Arts at the University of Uyo, all in Nigeria. He also studied political reporting at the International Institute of Journalism, Berlin, Germany. His romance with journalism began while in high school where he was president of the school’s press club.
At the polytechnic, where he graduated at the top of his class and won the Josef Akpabio Prize for the best graduating student, Mojeed was features editor of the department’s training newspaper. At Uyo, where he also came tops of his graduating class, he was deputy editor and later editor-in-chief of CAMPUS TIMES, the university’s training newspaper.
After school, Mojeed went on to work at various times with major newsmagazines and newspapers in Nigeria: THE NEWS/TEMPO, TELL and THE PUNCH where he was Chief Correspondent until December 2008. He is currently on study leave from NEXT, an investigative and influential Lagos-based newspaper where he is Deputy Enterprise Editor. He wrote extensively on politics, corruption, and human trafficking for these newspapers.
He has won academic and professional awards including the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for Excellence in Investigative Reporting. In 2004, he was a double nominee for the Nigerian Media Merit Awards’ Defence Reporter of the Year.
A widely travelled journalist, Mojeed was on the board of the Forum for African Investigative Reporters, FAIR, based in Johannesburg as well as a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors IRE, and the Nigerian Union of Journalists.
