HumAngle has just been announced winner of the Illicit Financial Flow category in the 2025 West Africa Media Excellence Conference Awards (WAMECA) for our investigation into The Internet Fundraising Marathon Behind IPOB’s Armed Struggle. Kunle Adebajo, HumAngle’s former Investigations Editor, who authored the story, also emerged as the West Africa Journalist of the Year. It is the second time in three years that a HumAngle journalist will receive the honour.
The announcement was made during an awards ceremony in Accra, Ghana, on Saturday evening, Oct. 11, with several journalists from across Africa in attendance.
WAMECA is an initiative of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and is currently in its eighth edition. The award has been described as West Africa’s biggest and most prestigious journalism award.
Two of our reports had been shortlisted under the same category. The MFWA said it received a total of 793 entries from more than 600 media outlets across 15 West African countries, with 335 of those entries coming from Nigeria. The shortlist of 26 had come from these entries, with Nigerian media dominating the list, including TheCable, Premium Times, Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Daily Trust, and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).
The other HumAngle report that was shortlisted was by Al’amin Umar, Climate Change Reporter. Al’amin’s work focuses on the complex intersections of environmental change, conflict, and sustainability efforts. He was a 2024 participant of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, as well as a 2025 grantee of the Earth Journalism Network’s Biodiversity Media Initiative.
His shortlisted report, ISWAP’s ‘Tax’ System is Bleeding Farmers Dry in Northeastern Nigeria, investigated how terrorists from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have been bleeding farmers dry in Borno, northeastern Nigeria, through an illegal taxation system. The report was done with support from the Pulitzer Centre.
Kunle, whose report won the award, was HumAngle’s Investigations Editor until October 2024, and now sits on the Advisory Board. His work for HumAngle covered conflict alongside its many intricacies and fallouts. He also writes about disinformation, the environment, and human rights. He’s won many journalism awards, including the 2021 Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Journalism, the 2022 African Fact-checking Award, and the 2023 Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling.
The judges noted an improvement in the quality of entries received this year, as well as more diversity in the countries represented.
They said the winning story was “bold, data-driven, and unflinchingly relevant. The story by HumAngle in Nigeria stands out for its extraordinary synthesis of digital forensics, conflict analysis, and accountability reporting. Through meticulous open-source intelligence and cross-border research, the reporter traced how diaspora money or diaspora-led crowdfunding and cryptocurrency networks were financing violence in Nigeria’s South East… This investigation does more than say money is moving; it actually shows how it moves, who moves it, where it goes, and what it buys…”
HumAngle had won the environmental reporting category of the award in 2023 with our first interactive story, All Die Na Die: At The Heart Of Nigeria’s Soot Problem. Merging audio and visuals, the story showed the genesis and process of illegal oil bunkering in Rivers State, Nigeria, and the extent of the resultant soot problem in the state, showing its effects on water, the soil, and even air quality. The author of the investigation, HumAngle’s former Interactive Editor, Temitayo Akinyemi (FKA Muhammed Akinyemi), was also awarded Journalist of the Year.
Commenting on HumAngle’s winning the award for the second time in three years, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Ahmad Salkida, said it was a testament to the commitment and excellence with which our journalists approach their profession.
“Both Kunle and Al’amin continue to personify the excellence that HumAngle stands for and the conviction upon which the organisation is built,” he said. “The conviction that journalism is powerful enough to influence history and shape perception and understanding. HumAngle is proud to have won this award again and will continue to be dedicated to our mission. I am also hopeful that this recognition will translate to even more impact, policy change, and wider understanding of terror financing and the magnitude of the insecurity issues in Nigeria’s South East.”
Accepting the award, Kunle said he was deeply honoured. “I stood on this stage in 2019 to receive a similar award,” he reminisced. “Between then and now, I think my craft has improved significantly… I want to thank the MFWA for their consistent support, for not just awarding journalists, but also making us feel special. I wish you more resources and willpower to continue to do this.”
HumAngle has won the Illicit Financial Flow category at the 2025 West Africa Media Excellence Conference Awards (WAMECA) for their investigation into IPOB's armed struggle financing, and Kunle Adebajo was named West Africa Journalist of the Year. The awards were announced in Accra, Ghana, with entries from numerous West African media, particularly from Nigeria, dominating the shortlist.
The award recognized the investigative brilliance of HumAngle's team, particularly Kunle's extensive work in conflict reporting, utilizing digital forensics to unveil how diaspora funds and cryptocurrency were fueling violence in Nigeria's South East. Another HumAngle report by Al’amin Umar, addressing illegal taxation by ISWAP on farmers, was also shortlisted, showcasing the organization's breadth in impactful investigative journalism.
Founder Ahmad Salkida attributed this achievement to the commitment of HumAngle's journalists, emphasizing the power of journalism to influence and bring awareness to significant issues like terror financing in Nigeria. As a testament to continuous excellence, HumAngle had previously won the 2023 WAMECA award for environmental reporting, highlighting their consistent contribution to journalism in the region.
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