PRNigeria’s Factchecker Wins Best Open Source Intelligence Award in West Africa
Mohammed Dahiru Lawal, a fact-check journalist and head of investigations at PRNigeria, has emerged as the overall winner of the Best in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) reporting award in Anglophone West Africa.
Dahiru clinched the honor at the 2025 Excellence in Journalism Awards dinner hosted by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) at the Abuja Continental Hotel.
The awards celebrated the culmination of the 2025 Kwame Kari Kari Fact Checking and OSINT Fellowship.
The CJID stated that Dahiru’s win “showcases the power of open-source investigation, combining precision, critical thinking and commitment to truth to help the public make sense of complex events”.
The 2025 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking and OSINT Fellowship, organized by DUBAWA and DAIDAC (both programs of the CJID), graduated 40 journalists from seven West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.
This year’s cohort was the first to introduce the OSINT component as its major thematic area.
Yushau Shuaib, Publisher and CEO of PRNigeria, expressed pride in the achievement: “This win in partnership with Daily Nigerian is consequential because it represents the best honor of the program, being that it is the fellowships theme this year and seemingly the first OSINT focused honor in the region. It is a feat our newsroom will remain proud of.”
Dahiru Lawal is an accomplished young professional, whose accolades include Campus Journalist of the Year 2020, Kwame Kari Kari Best West African Fellow 2021, and the U.S. Department of State Mandela Washington Fellowship 2023. He is also the author of 101 Fake News on EndSARS.
Other awardees recognized at the ceremony included Dare Akogun (runner-up for Best OSINT, Anglophone) and Abdullai Tijani (Best Fact Check, Anglophone).
The awards also celebrated categories such as Health Reporting, Climate Change Reporting, Solutions Journalism, Community Reporting, and the new Editor of the Year Award.
By PRNigeria
