Mayowa Tijani
Mayowa Tijani is a multi-award-winning public speaker, development journalist, and one of Africa’s best fact-checkers. Currently, Mayowa Tijani is Business and Development Editor at TheCable, a leading online newspaper publishing company in Nigeria and leads the French News Agency, AFP-Facebook third-party fact-checking drive in Nigeria. Before now, he worked as a Reporter and Staff Writer at the online news media between 2014 to 2017.
Mayowa has worked with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ). He attends the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual meetings in Washington DC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Summit in New York.
In the course of his career, he has reported and interviewed leading global figures, including Bill Gates, the founder of the trillion-dollar company, Microsoft. Mayowa’s work has led him to become one of the 50 young leaders and only African journalists from over 144 countries around the world to discuss and proffer solutions to sundry education and human rights issues at the Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Great Park, UK.
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Mayowa Tijani completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Food Technology from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan; a Post-Graduate Diploma in Print Journalism from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos; and a Master of Arts degree (with distinction) in Media Practice for Development and Social Change at the University of Sussex through the prestigious UK government Chevening scholarship. He also received the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa Financial Journalism certification.
For his numerous contribution to journalism and storytelling, Mayowa was named the Most Outstanding Student in Campus Journalism at the University of Ibadan by the Junior Chamber International (JCI). In the same year, he received the Nigerian Championship of Public Speaking (NCPS) in Abuja and was certified a Competent Communicator by Toastmasters International, California, USA.
In 2015, he was one of the few journalists from across Africa, trained by the UNMC as media ambassadors for the SDGs and in 2017, he won the best team award at the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA) cohort three. He was also a finalist for The Future Awards Africa prize for excellence in journalism, and the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the year 2017.
In December 2018, Mayowa ran the first-ever live fact check of any electoral debate in Nigeria’s 58-year history! And won the second prize at Africa’s Best Fact-Checking Awards in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2019. In 2020, he was one of only three Nigerian journalists certified by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to provide coverage in the selection process for the director-general of the organisation, which saw Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala win the position.