Mr. Ajanaku is an award-winning journalist, development writer and activist. He has worked extensively in the civic and media spaces to promote human rights, democracy and accountable governance. His deep interest in understanding and disseminating around various national and global challenges found an initial outlet in development journalism. This enduring interest in developmental journalism explains his career at The Guardian, the acclaimed flagship of the Nigerian Press, where he covered key governance and public sector issues. His contributions were recognized with nominations as Climate Change Media Partnership Fellow (CCMP) by the Earth Journalism Network. Thereafter, Mr. Ajanaku was awarded by the United Nations Development Programme and the Nigerian Guild of Editors for excellent development reporting.
Subsequently, Ajanaku made the transition from media to civil society, with the goal of supporting advocacy for human rights and good governance. He has led development communication efforts in organizations such as Heinrich Boell Stiftung, Transition Monitoring Group and the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD). His background as a development writer has enable him to effectively disseminate extensively on key human rights and civic issues, including maternal healthcare, youth employment and participation, countering disinformation and violent extremism, as well as other areas around human rights, security and grassroots governance. Mr. Ajanaku is of the strong conviction that for a fractious and divided society like Nigeria, countering mis/disinformation in all its manifestation, is critical to ensuring national stability and by extension, the consolidation of democracy itself.