HumAngle has concluded the third cohort of its bi-annual accountability fellowship programme.

The cohort’s training commenced in July 2023, and its end was marked today by a virtual event that had the nine members of the graduating cohort, HumAngle’s CEO, and team members from HumAngle in attendance.

In his opening remark, HumAngle’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Ahmad Salkida, congratulated the fellows on the completion of their training. He also noted that the latest cohort has been the best since the programme’s inception in 2022.

“I hope this is going to be the beginning of even better cohorts,” he said.

The one-hour-long event was hosted by Isaac Oritogun, HumAngle Foundation’s senior researcher and M&E officer, who is also the coordinator of the fellowship programme.

During the event, Oritogun equally congratulated the cohort for first being selected out of over a hundred applicants and for also having the tenacity, drive, and discipline to make it to the end of the programme.

The researcher also echoed Salkida’s words about the cohort being the most exceptional yet.

“Over the past five months, they have been able to publish 34 stories,” he said, explaining that the number of stories done by the last two cohorts amounted to 35 in total.

“This means that this cohort alone has done the combined number of activities done by the first two,” Oritogun continued.

The graduating cohort, which consisted of four females and five males, was also able to carry out 28 advocacy activities through which they reached 936 people, 38 per cent of whom were males and 62 per cent females.

“Of all these persons we reached, 47 per cent were between 10 and 18 years old. This means that close to half of our activities were centred around young people,” Oritogun noted.

He also applauded the fellows for their commitment to learning, as even though a number of them had zero prior knowledge and experience with the media, they were able to churn out remarkable stories regardless.

While giving his speech, Al’amin Umar, valedictorian of the cohort, thanked HumAngle for affording them the opportunity to do all that they have been able to do.

“As we delved into our responsibilities, we quickly realised the immense duty upon us as fellows who had been entrusted with the task of reporting, analysing, and holding the government responsible in its role in protecting lives and properties within our communities,” he said.

To conclude his speech, Umar said the 6-month long programme has exposed them to the many ordeals of underprivileged Nigerians and has also armed them with the necessary skills to spotlight those problems.

“We are not just graduates of the HumAngle accountability fellowship; we are ambassadors of accountability, champions of human values and storytellers committed to shaping an informed, compassionate, and resilient world.”

Other members of the cohort who spoke after Umar also shared some of the challenges they encountered in the course of the programme. Some of them include difficulty accessing hard-to-reach communities and complex sources.

Giving her remark at the event, HumAngle’s Managing Editor, Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, congratulated the cohort on the completion of the programme and also commended their patience in learning and their commitment to their duties, which has led them to produce the most diverse set of reports since the fellowship started last year. 

As has been done in events marking the end of the past two cohorts, HumAngle’s CEO announced the best graduating fellow of the cohort.

This year’s winner, Al’amin Umar, will, like the previous winners, be offered a job placement at HumAngle.

The latest graduating fellows are the third cohort members of the accountability fellowship programme initiated by HumAngle in June 2022.

The programme is done with support from the MacArthur Foundation, and so far, cohorts in the fellowship have been able to produce both written and multimedia reports highlighting the plights of Nigerians in hard-to-reach communities and questioning the underperformance of those elected to address those sufferings.

Like the ones before them, this current cohort comprises indigenes of the BAY states (Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe). The reason for this purposeful selection has been to ensure that selected cohorts are able to not just navigate the most remote of places but also to tell the stories that are most important to those communities and authentic.