Mojeed President, Shekarau Secretary
The Editor-in-Chief/Chief Operating Officer of PREMIUM TIMES Nigeria, Muskilu Mojeed, has emerged as President of the Nigeria chapter of the International Press Institute.
Mojeed emerged as president unopposed during a session of the General Assembly of the Institute, which was held physically and virtually in Abuja on Thursday.
Also at the meeting, the General Manager, Business and Strategy of Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust, Ahmed Shekarau, was elected Secretary of IPI Nigeria.
Shekarau won the majority of the votes cast at the election, defeating his only contender, Qasim Akinreti, who is the Deputy Director, Digital Media, at the Voice of Nigeria.
A statement issued in Abuja by the Executive Board member of the global body of the Institute, Raheem Adedoyin, also announced the emergence, unopposed, of Rafatu Salami, Assistant Director, Digital Media of VON, as Treasurer.
The statement disclosed that the General Assembly mandated the newly constituted exco to work towards filling the vacant positions of deputy president, assistant general secretary, financial secretary and legal adviser, which were not filled on Thursday because there were no nominations into them.
The election was conducted by a three-member electoral panel, which had the Chairman of Daily Trust, Kabiru Yusuf; the founder of Radio Now, Kadaria Ahmed and Adedoyin as members.
The oath of office for the newly constituted exco members was administered immediately after the general assembly by a Lawyer/Notary Public, Zainab Musa.
The swearing-in of the exco was witnessed by the global IPI Executive Board member, Adedoyin, and members of the Nigerian chapter of the Institute, among whom were a Director in Media Trust Limited, Mannir Dan-Ali; Chairman of the Editorial Board of Blueprint newspapers, Zainab Suleiman Okino; Deputy Editor, 21st Century Chronicle, Catherine Agbo, and Akinreti.
In his acceptance speech after his emergence as president, Mojeed, who expressed the appreciation of his team to all members of IPI Nigeria for the confidence reposed in them, assured that the new exco would work harder towards deepening press freedom and accelerating free speech in Nigeria, and the world at large.
“We will also work at deepening collaboration with newsrooms and other organisations in the defence of press freedom in Nigeria and elsewhere,” he said, adding that “We will implement measures and programmes that will make ours a stronger voice as we firmly stand up for media freedom, freedom of speech and the free flow of news and information whenever, wherever and however they are threatened.”
Continuing, the PREMIUM TIMES COO, said, “Our team will also take a holistic look at the key issues confronting our newsrooms today and undermining press freedom one way and another. The issues include those concerning ethics, regulation, sustainability, credibility, and fake news.”
Mojeed and Shekarau took over on Thursday from Kabiru Yusuf and Adedoyin, who had piloted the affairs of the body for years as chairman and secretary, respectively, and have since been elevated to the Board of Trustees of the organisation.
Other members of the Board of Trustees of IPI Nigeria are Ms Ahmed; the Managing Director of ThisDay Newspapers, Eniola Bello, and veteran journalist, and Newsport Online, Folu Olamiti.
The general assembly of IPI Nigeria had at a session held on August 5 this year ratified proposals made for the expansion of its current executive council (Exco), which gave room for the creation of additional offices in the Exco such as deputy president, assistant secretary, and legal adviser.
The congress also approved the change in nomenclature of the highest leadership position in its Exco, from being addressed as Chairman to President, while also adopting a proposal to adopt the name Secretary in place of General Secretary for its scribe.
The IPI is a global network of media executives, editors and leading journalists. Since its establishment in 1950, it has consistently and strongly crusaded for media freedom in every corner of the world.
The Nigerian chapter of the Institute has also done the same to some degree, deploying the platform to resist brutal assaults on press freedom in Nigeria.
Musikilu Mojeed in brief
Mojeed is the editor-in-chief and chief operating officer of Nigeria ́s Premium Times newspaper, which he co-founded in 2011. He has held that position since 2016. Before then, he was managing editor/executive director of the company.
Mojeed is an award-winning journalist and a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
He has also been a paid-up member of the IPI, Vienna, since May 2018 when he was admitted. He also joined the Nigerian chapter of the institute about the same time following his invitation to be part of the security subcommittee for the IPI World Congress in Nigeria that year.
Mojeed began his journalism career as an intern with the Nigerian Tribune in 1993. Since then, he has gone on to work with The Will (Uyo), The News/Tempo, Tell Magazine, The Punch, Next, Premium Times and other publications.
A 2012 Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, and 2009 Ford Foundation International Fellow at The City University of New York, Mojeed was a judge of the UNESCO World Press Freedom Awards, completing his three-year tenure in 2016.
He was also a member of the expert council of the Fetisov Journalism Awards, the world’s biggest journalism contest in terms of cash prizes.
He has reported extensively on corruption, illicit financial flow, human rights and human trafficking and is one of Africa’s most regarded investigative journalists.
A winner of several awards, Mojeed shared a Pulitzer for his team’s groundbreaking reporting on the Panama Papers.
He has also been honoured with the Global Shining Light Award, FAIR’s Editor’s Courage Award, the Wole Soyinka Investigative Reporting Awards, Global Editors Network’s Data Journalism Award, among others.
He has trained journalists in Nigeria, Ghana, Tunisia, South Africa, Senegal, Benin Republic, Germany, Ukraine, Norway on investigative reporting and is a regular speaker at the West African Investigative Journalism Conference, the African Investigative Journalism Conference and the Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
He also spoke at the World Press Freedom Day Celebration in Riga, Latvia, in 2015.
Mojeed is a trustee of the Global Media Campaign to End FGM (a UK charity) and was on the board of the Johannesburg-based Forum for African Investigative Reporters. He is a member of the U.S-based Investigative Reporters and Editors.
He is co-founder and was chairman of the Board of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, which has a robust press attacks tracker programme.
He also created nigeriapolicewatch.com (which empowers citizens to oversee police conduct) and imoleng.com (a platform that connects Nigerian journalists with resources for in-depth reporting).
Mojeed holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts from the University of Uyo, Nigeria, and a Masters in Journalism from the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.
