The Nigeria Network of NGOs (NNNGOs) has selected three journalists for the Phase One of its NNNGOs Journalism Fellowship.

The beneficiaries are PUNCH Newspapers’ Correspondent in Ebonyi State, Mr. Edward Nnachi; Editor at the Gazette News in Borno State, Mr. Vangawa Bolgent, and a reporter and producer at 103.5FM, Radio One, Lagos,, Federal Radio Corporation Of Nigeria, Nkechi Macaulay. They represent the fellowship’s thematic regions of North-East, South-West and South-East.

The Fellowship is an initiative of the Nigeria Network of NGOs aimed at raising awareness that the survival of Nigeria’s democratic and civic space depends on the quality, courage, and versatility of its journalism.

The organisers said after a thorough selection process, the three fellows were selected from a pool of 368 applications received for the first phase of the fellowship programme.

The fellowship, which is for a period of 10 months, runs from March, 2026 through December, 2026, and will have the fellows immersed in professional mentorship, periodic capacity building, and data sharing, with post-fellowship activities following afterwards.

Speaking during a just concluded four-day training to herald the exercise, the Executive Director of the Nigeria Network of NGOs, Mr. Oyebisi Babatunde Oluseyi, said the fellowship was a clarion call to Nigerian journalists to strengthen the nation’s democracy and civic space through quality and versatile reportage.

“The fellowship bridges two worlds that have operated in parallel for too long, civic space and development impact, and equips journalists to report across both with equal rigour and equal editorial ambition.

“In concrete terms, it means the journalists are about to become some of the best-equipped journalists in Nigeria, not because of any single tool or technique, but because they will be operating at the intersection of civic space expertise, development data literacy, digital verification capability, multi-format production skill, and institutional safety infrastructure. That combination does not currently exist in any other fellowship programme in this country.”