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TheCable’s Mayowa Tijani named finalist in UK foundation’s young journalist award

September 16, 2017 9:13 am

Mayowa Tijani, staff writer and columnist at TheCable, has been named one of the 12 finalists for the Thomson Foundation 2017 Young Journalist Award.

The annual Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award is part of the UK Foreign Press Association Awards (FPA), which seeks to foster debate and drive change.

Tijani was shortlisted for his four-part series, Tears from Rann, which shed light on the plight of the victims of a military “accidental bombing of civilians” in Rann, a town in Borno state, the centrestage of insurgency in Nigeria.

He was shortlisted alongside The Nation’s Hannah Ojo and The Punch’s Babatunde Ajaja and nine others from Pakistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ghana, Ukraine, Syria, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.

“Oluwamayowa Tijani provided a harrowing account of the forgotten children in Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, describing the neglect and inadequate medical care at the federal hospital that was supposed to treat them through a victims’ support fund,” Thomson Foundation said via a statement.

In 2017, the competition attracted 236 entries from 60 qualifying countries — double the number received in 2016.

“The response to this year’s competition has been exceptional. We applaud the immense bravery, enterprise and skill of all the finalists. Each has cast a light on important issues or events which otherwise would have gone uncovered,” Nigel Baker, chief executive of the Thomson Foundation, said.

Each of the shortlisted entrants will receive a certificate from Thomson Foundation commending them on the high standard of their work, and will have the opportunity to participate in the foundation’s digital learning platform, Journalism Now.

Tijani, who recently won the UK government’s 2017 Chevening Scholarship, studied food technology at the University of Ibadan and print journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba, Lagos.

In 2015, Tijani was one of the few journalists from across Africa, trained by the United Nations Millennium Campaign as media ambassadors for the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs).

By 2016, he was nominated for the 2016 PwC awards in SME and Tax reporting and ended up as a runner-up in both categories. In 2017, he was named on the best team of the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA) cohort three.