Linus Unah

Freelance Journalist

Nigeria

Linus Unah is a Nigerian journalist with a penchant for long-form stories that go beyond the surface to offer in-depth coverage of issues on health, agriculture, education and technology.

Portfolio
Ripples Nigeria
09/21/2017
INVESTIGATION... 21 Days in NYSC Camps: How Nigeria frustrates its youths, as officials plunder...

Young Nigerian graduates from universities and polytechnics are often excited about the call to serve the nation. Every year, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) mobilises hundreds of thousands of both locally and foreign-trained graduates for the year-long compulsory national service that begins with a 21-day orientation exercise across the 36 states of the federation, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Aljazeera
08/02/2018
In Nigeria, Anglophone Cameroonians turn to low paid labour

Agbokim Waterfalls, Nigeria - Stella Obi wakes every morning in search of odd jobs in Agbokim Waterfalls village in southern Nigeria's Cross River state. With a hoe and a machete, the 34-year-old asks locals if they have any work for her on their farms. She weeds or breaks cocoa pods.

IRIN
07/13/2017
In Nigeria, healing the scars of war might curtail its spread

It's often said that prevention is better than cure. But when it comes to the devastation wreaked upon civilians by armed groups, can cure serve as a form of prevention? For Imrana Alhaji Buba, a policy specialist at the Global Alliance of Youths Countering Violent Extremism, the answer is a resounding "Yes".

NPR.org
07/07/2017
They Quit Their Office Jobs To Teach Kids In A Camp For Displaced People

Zachariah Ibrahim dreams of being a pilot. That's not so unusual for a 13-year-old kid. But not that long ago, Zachariah didn't have many dreams for the future. Two young Nigerians helped give him hope again. Awofeso Adebola, 23, and Ifeoluwa Ayomide, 22, had well-paying jobs in the Nigerian parliament.

Bhekisisa
06/28/2017
Nigeria's children tied up in a marriage knot

Poverty, traditions and no education means laws will do little to end the practice of child brides. When Halima Ibrahim got a marriage proposal, she didn't hesitate. A new and exciting experience beckoned; a way out of grinding poverty where she did not have to compete with 16 siblings for food, space and attention.

IRIN
06/27/2017
Taking the fight against Boko Haram to the airwaves

Isolation helps propagate radicalisation, so providing information and giving an empowering voice to civilians helps reduce it. That's the idea behind a radio station broadcasting across a vast region in West Africa devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency. As the "on-air" lamp flashes in the sound-proofed studio, presenter Fatima Ibrahim Mu'azzam puts on her headphones.

The Christian Science Monitor
05/30/2017
With few memories of Biafra War, young Nigerians renew calls for independence

When Nigeria's brutal Biafran War ended in 1970, Sopuru Amah's birth was still more than two decades away. The only knowledge the 22-year-old college student has of the war comes filtered through memoir and memory - the stories he has read and those he has heard from parents and relatives who survived the three-year civil conflict, which killed more than a million people between 1967 and 1970.

IRIN
05/03/2017
Flood-ridden Nigeria farmers need more help adapting to climate change

Okechukwu Onwuma still remembers the painful day heavy floods destroyed his small farm in southern Nigeria's Delta State. "It was in November 2012, and the flood didn't spare anything in this community," the 45-year-old said, hunched over a small heap of yam on his farm, near Oko-Amakom.

The Development Set
04/06/2017
Where Pregnancy Isn't A Death Sentence - The Development Set

Reproductive Health Toyin Alade cleans her own home every morning before hurrying off to visit the homes of pregnant women in the outskirts of Akure, a bustling city in the southwestern Ondo state of Nigeria. Alade, 45, does not wear scrubs. Nor does she carry surgical gloves, syringes, or needles.