SCHOLARSHIP AWARDEE 2022

Segun Olakoyenikan (Nigeria)

Segun Olakoyenikan is a Nigerian journalist pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Business and Economic Reporting at New York University’s Carter Journalism Institute.

He holds a postgraduate diploma in journalism from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, and a certificate in financial journalism at the Lagos Business School. He was honored in 2021 with the African Fact-Checking Award for uncovering a falsified EU report on the mass abduction of schoolchildren in Nigeria.

Before joining the wire service where he covered business and debunked a wide array of claims ranging from Covid-related misinformation to politicians misusing official data, Segun worked as a financial journalist for leading Nigerian daily newspaper BusinessDay.

His reporting experience and efforts against the weaponization of disinformation and propaganda across young democracies in Africa have been useful to budding journalists on the continent. From Nigeria to Ghana and then the Gambia, Segun trained hundreds of journalists in information verification ahead of key elections over the past five years.