In December 2022, INMA and Google News Initiative (GNI) awarded their third annual Elevate Scholarship to 50 news media professionals from 31 countries. This series features these impressive media professionals who are shaping our industry.

As senior reporter, producer, and content creator for Radio NOW, 95.3FM, Olubunmi Yekini has been fortunate to work in some very impactful roles.

“I started my journalism career in 2008 as a content creator, reporter, and producer with Metro FM (Radio Nigeria),” Yekini recalled. “In 2014, I was deployed to Radio One, 103.5FM (Radio Nigeria), a talk station where I was also put in charge of the station’s health, news and current affairs, and lifestyle programmes.”

In that role, Yekini has blossomed and her hard-hitting journalism has won awards including the Red Ribbon Award of the Journalists Against AIDS, JAAIDS — Nigeria for the Best Radio Feature on HIV/AIDS, 2014, The Nigeria Media Merit Awards’ NMMA Radio Reporter of the Year, and Second Runner-up/Female Reporters Leadership Program 2017 of The Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism.

Now, she is the media ambassador for the New HIV/AIDS Vaccine and Microbicides Advocacy Society, NHVMAS Nigeria, an alumnus of the U.S. government exchange programme IVLP, a member of the Wole Soyinka’s Report Women Network, and a member of the Holland Alumni Network.

Yekini is also a volunteer career mentor at Skill Out School Foundation in Abuja, and a maternal and child health advocate. But that’s just part of how she gives back: “I am serving my second term in office as the vice-chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, Lagos State Chapter,” she said.

In the future, Yekini said she aspires to “… run a successful media outfit that will not only provide world-class training and mentorship to budding journalists across all platforms but also provide a workspace for freelance journalists where they can comfortably stay and get their work without an additional cost [to] them.” She explained that presently no place in Nigeria offers freelance journalists a free workspace.

One of Yekini’s priorities is to be a staunch supporter of inclusiveness, and she appreciates that she is in a position to be able to help in that area:

“As a broadcast journalist, I can create programmes where issues of inclusiveness will take centre stage. These programmes can be in the form of radio drama, discussions, and radio magazines,” Yekini said, adding that she could feature stakeholders and marginalised groups to highlight issues of inclusiveness — and also provide solutions.

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