27-year-old Yusuf Anka has won the 2023 Global Shining Light Award in the large outlets category on the September 21, 2023.
At an event held in Gothenburg, Sweden, Mr. Anka’s documentary on the BBC Africa Eye was adjudged the joint best among over 400 entries from over 80 countries.
Published in 2022, the documentary was titled ‘The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara‘. The report exposed the gravity of an underreported crisis: the atrocities of bandit terrorists in northern Nigeria.
Yusuf Anka was, however, not able to physically attend the event because he was denied an entry visa by the Swedish embassy in Nigeria, a BBC official said at the event.
The Global Shining Light Award (GSLA) is organised by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) every two years to honour watchdog journalism in developing or transitioning countries, carried out under threat or in perilous conditions.
Winners will receive a plaque and $2,500 while certificate awardees will receive a plaque and $1,000.
According to Sheila Coronel, chair of the judging panel:
“The winners of the Global Shining Light Awards renew our faith that the muckraking tradition remains alive, even in the most dangerous and inhospitable places.
It is a dangerous time to be an investigative journalist and our winners have shown that with courage, skill, and the support of citizens, groundbreaking and high-impact reporting is possible despite the risks. We salute this year’s awardees. They are an inspiration to all of us.”
Mr. Anka’s report revealed the true scale and horror of the violence that has engulfed Nigeria’s north-west. It shows how thousands were killed, a million people displaced, and hundreds of schools closed in northern Nigeria.
It also featured mothers who saw their kids slaughtered, schoolgirls who survived captivity, a teenage girl who was burned and slashed by vigilantes, and a teenage boy killed by Nigerian soldiers. It was described as an unflinching portrayal of a story that desperately needed to be told.
Mr. Anka is a graduate of law from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. As an undergraduate, he began reporting on the conflict in Zamfara for HumAngle and, in 2019, began working with BBC Africa Eye on a documentary film about the violence.
Over almost three years, and at tremendous personal risk, Mr. Anka said he gained unprecedented access to protagonists on all sides of this conflict.
At the 2023 Global Shining Light Award gala, organisers said this year’s award-winning teams focused on issues such as violence perpetrated with impunity, the exploitation of COVID-19 patients, and hidden environmental abuses — and pursued them often under severe threat.
The award has two categories: Small and Medium outlets category and Large outlets category.
Joint winners announced in the Small and Medium Outlets category were Bad Blood, a documentary by the Investigative Reporting Lab (North Macedonia), and Above the Law, by Viewfinder, (South Africa).
On the other hand, joint winners for Large Outlets were Mr. Anka’s report – The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara, by BBC Africa Eye (Nigeria), and Corredor Furtivo, by Armando Info (Venezuela) and El País (Spain).
Organisers also awarded certificates of excellence to Ukrainian and Bangladesh journalists for their reporting on “How Volunteers Buried Civilians en Masse in Izium,” and “Secret Prisoners of Dhaka,” respectively.
The judging panel chose the four GSLA winners and two certificate awardees from a dozen finalists from 11 countries, across the two categories.
