The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) has trained 12 female journalists on newsroom leadership and investigative reporting skills, through its 2025 Report Women! Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme (FRLP) fellowship. The three-day residential training, held from 2 -4 April, at the L’ eola Hotel, Ikeja, groomed the participants on various aspects of newsroom operations and leadership.
The FRLP Fellowship, in its sixth edition, is a key component of the larger Report Women! Initiative. It is designed to foster women’s leadership in newsrooms while addressing gender disparities in journalism.
The Chief Executive Officer, WSCIJ, Mrs Motunrayo Alaka, while welcoming the female reporters to the landmark champion building edition of the programme, disclosed that the training will focus on strengthening their abilities to improve on accountability journalism in Nigeria’s newsrooms as leadership roles becomes evenly shared amongst men and women.
She noted that more female experts are engaged as resource persons for the workshop, urging the participants to be intentional in honing their investigative reporting skills to address the crucial issues impacting the society
Recalling the WSCIJ’s strides in accountability journalism over the years, she said the centre has been intentional about equity between men and women in the newsrooms and the news. “Our 2024 report, ‘Who leads the newsrooms and news’ examined the board and management composition of 111 media organisations in Nigeria across the four media genres. It revealed that women occupied 25.7 per cent of leadership positions, while men dominated with 74.3 percent.”
Alaka urged the lady journalists to seize the fellowship opportunity to equip themselves with the skills and influence needed to reshape this narrative.
The shortlisted journalists include: Temitope Obayendo, online editor, Pharmanews; Melony Ishola, head of programmes, Video Unit, PUNCH; Aisha Gambo, senior correspondent, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN); Jemilat Nasiru, staff writer, TheCable; Juliet Buna, reporter and editor, Crest 91.1FM; Bilkis Lawal, reporter and editor, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (Bond FM); Rasheedat Iliyas, manager, News and Current Affairs, Radio Nigeria Harmony FM; Mary Agidi, features and opinion writer, The Hope; Dana Zagi, gender lead, Media Trust Group; Chigozie Victor, senior editor, Zikoko Citizen, Big Cabal Media; Christiana Alabi-Akande, managing editor, Development Reporting Service; and Gloria Attah, news anchor and reporter, Clearview Television.
Launched in 2014, Alaka said the Report Women! Programme was designed to enhance both the quality and quantity of reportage on issues of abuse and access for girls and women. In 2017, the initiative expanded to include knowledge creation through research and engagement with the executive management of news media organizations.
According to the WSCIJ boss, “since inception, the Report Women! Programme has trained 86 fellows across five cohorts, who are now managers, editors, heads of investigative desks, and board members. For this year’s fellowship, the initiative, which is supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has assembled a crop of seasoned resources persons and mentors on investigating reporting, law, leadership, civil society and media development, to guide and refine the participants skills through training, leadership, storytelling projects an personalised mentorship towards helping them to become confident leaders.”
The resource persons and mentors that facilitated the capacity development programme were Stella Din-Jacob, director of news, TVC Communications, Lagos; Mr Idris Akinbajo, editor-in-chief, Premium Times, Mrs Alaka, CEO WSCIJ; Prof. Ayodele Atsenuwa, immediate past deputy vice-chancellor, UNILAG; Mrs Bimbo Oloyede, CEO, Strictly Speaking Academy; and Juliana Francis, publisher, Security Alert.
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