Aisha Salaudeen (25)

Aisha Salaudeen is a multimedia journalist with years of experience telling and helping people tell stories. She has worked in full time and freelance journalism, using images, videos, and text to report and investigate diverse human-interest stories in Africa.

Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Al Jazeera English, Okay Africa, and TRT World.

She currently works out of the CNN Africa bureau in Lagos, Nigeria, writing/editing features on China- Africa relations, business, culture, and technology in Africa.

Aisha works with the teams producing sponsored CNN specials such as African Voices Changemakers, Inside Africa, and Market Place Africa to create digital stories after the episodes air on TV.

Joey Akan (28)

Joey Akan is a writer, journalist, and commentator on current affairs, including African music, Urban pop culture, politics, sport, race, gender and sexuality. He spent over 5 years as the Music Editor of Pulse Nigeria, where he led a team of creatives at the Pulse Entertainment Desk.

He’s written on a variety of topics for the music industry, including investigations into the music distribution business, Africa, it’s sounds and the culture of music. His works have appeared in Pulse, Guardian, OkayAfrica, Genius, CNN and many more publications. Joey has several years of Entertainment industry and pop culture experience, acting as a consultant for major record labels.

Joey has also covered some of the continent’s biggest events, including the MTV Africa Music Awards, Red Bull Culture Clash, Headies, African Music Awards, and many others. Joey also engages in speaking engagements across the country, where he delivers masterclasses on Entertainment Journalism. Currently, he is the Editor of Universal Music Group, Nigeria.

Ayodeji Rotinwa (29)

Ayodeji Rotinwa is a journalist and editor covering culture, visual art and sustainable development issues including public health, education and social innovation, across West Africa and beyond. He often also covers how these diverse issues intersect. He is passionate about documenting how culture influences, transforms other sectors. His work has been published in The New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, The Africa Report, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Art Forum, Devex, VOGUE US, World Politics Review and other outlets.

Shola Lawal (25)

Shola Lawal is a Nigeria-based freelance journalist and filmmaker covering social justice, development, women and environmental issues across West Africa. She has reported from Ghana, Togo, Finland and from the Nigerian/Cameroonian border. Her reporting calls attention to stories that deeply affect people and the environment: Her stories have taken her to volatile oil fields in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, endangered forests in Ghana and the troubled streets of Lomé, Togo. Apart from Mail and Guardian, Lawal’s work, (video and words) have appeared in Al Jazeera, TRT World and IRIN News. Lawal is currently working on a documentary film that chronicles the lives of indigenous faith believers in Nigeria, and the discriminatory attitudes they face. Lawal previously worked as a video producer with Zikoko – the Nigerian media company aspiring to be Africa’s Buzzfeed – where she helped start a video department. In 2018, Lawal represented Nigeria at the Foreign Correspondents’ Programme in Helsinki, Finland. On the 13th of June 2019, The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) announced her selection as its 2019 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow from a field of more than 100 applicants spanning 43 countries. This unique fellowship, now in its 15th year, provides journalists with training and experience reporting on human rights and social justice issues.

Kiki Mordi (28)

Kiki Mordi is a journalist, media personality, filmmaker and writer.

In 2017, she started an online petition to end police extortion and exploitation after some Nigerian policemen wrongfully invade her home and accused her and her boyfriend of cultism. In 2019, she produced a documentary film “Life at the Bay” in Lagos, Nigeria. The film tells the story of the inhabitants of Tarkwa Bay and the survival and struggles of their women. On 17 May 2019, the film was selected by Real Time International Film Festival and on the 6th of October 2019, the film was selected to show at the 2019 Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), that will hold from 10 to 16 November 2019. On 7 October 2019, Mordi and her team at the BBC Africa Eye released a 13-minute documentary exposing sexual harassment of students by lecturers at the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana.  As a result of the documentary, the Nigerian senate heeded the call of Nigerians and re-introduced the anti-sexual harassment bill and was read on the floor of the senate on the 9th of October, 2019.

She is a current BBC Africa Eye reporter and the head of presentation with WFM 91.7.