Philip Obaji Jr.

Obaji is a 2025 ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award winner.

Philip Obaji Jr. is the foremost journalist reporting for international audiences on massacres, rape, torture and other abuses at the hands of Russian paramilitaries in Central and West Africa. The government-contracted forces are fighting rebels in exchange for access to minerals and other commodities – in part to help fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Since 2018, the Nigerian journalist has documented as many as 100 instances of abuse by the Wagner Group and its successor, Africa Corps, primarily in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali. Obaji has interviewed dozens of survivors on the ground in refugee camps, mining villages and elsewhere – reporting that requires great care and that has led to him being abducted and assaulted.

Obaji is a correspondent for The Daily Beast based in Nigeria. A longtime freelancer, Obaji has reported for Al Jazeera, The Guardian and USA Today, among other outlets. In 2023, Obaji was selected as an inaugural recipient of the ICFJ Jim Hoge Reporting Fellowship.

Obaji has provided some of the most detailed, and heartbreaking, accounts of Russian paramilitary forces committing violence – often relayed by women and children survivors. For one article, Obaji spoke to dozens of witnesses in Bouar, CAR, who told him that the “white soldiers” had drugged, raped and administered contraceptives to hundreds of young women since February 2021, when the town was recaptured from rebels.

In 2024, Obaji testified in Washington, DC, before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe – an independent commission of the United States federal government – drawing attention to Russia’s often obscured operations in Africa. He also spoke of his harrowing experience on a reporting trip in CAR, where government forces arrested and beat him and rebels later held him for hours.

Obaji is the winner of the 2024 Homo Homini Human Rights Award, the 2023 One World Media International Journalist of the Year award, and the 2022 Jaime Brunet International Prize. In addition to reporting on Russian paramilitary forces, he has reported on jihadism, human trafficking and other human rights issues in sub-Saharan Africa. Obaji began his journalism career as a college student in 2004, working as a talk show host on Cross River Broadcasting Corporation (CRBC) TV in Nigeria.