Six Nigerian journalists, from various news media, including two freelancers, have been named as 2017 BudgIT media fellows.

They include:  Eromo Egbejule – Freelance Journalist; Hannah Ojo – The Nation Newspaper; Mercy Abang – Freelance journalist; Lanre Lasisi – Channels television; Ayodeji Rotinwa – ThisDay Newspaper, and Ruth Oluronbi – Nigerian Tribune.

BudgIT is a civic organization that employs the use of technology to breakdown government policies for easier understanding and assimilation by the populace with the aim of facilitating societal change.

The organisation uses an array of tech tools to simplify the budget and matters of public spending for citizens, so as to encourage transparency and accountability in government.

The Media Fellowship will commence in June 2017 and will run for a period of six months.

Fellows will be supported by the BudgIT team in the course of the program to write stories on focus areas.

They will receive funding support to investigate their stories as well as monthly stipends to support them throughout the fellowship.

At the end of the programme, the fellows will convene a media roundtable discussion to share experience and present a compilation of their stories.

BudgIT specializes in deploying refined data mining skillsets to creatively represent data and empower citizens to use the resulting information in demanding improved service delivery.

So far, BudgIT had been able to reach over 750,000 Nigerians via digital and physical spaces, leading online and offline conversations on government finance and public sector efficiency.