His contributions and influence in the culture sector cuts across journalism, publishing, advocacy and consultancy. His multimedia storytelling focuses on the creative arts, festivals and heritage sites. His articles have appeared in many publications, including Daily Mirror, The Sowetan, Africa Today, The Guardian, Kinfolk, World Policy Journal and LOJEL, among others.
AVID travel journalist and culture reporter, Pelu Awofeso has been declared winner of the Distinguished Personality Award of the 2026 Lagos Studies Association conference. He will be formally crowned at the grand closing ceremony of the 10th anniversary edition of the conference, which holds on Friday, June 19, 2026 at the Trinity University in Onike area of Sabo Yaba.
Awofeso, recognised rightly as a ‘Journalist Without Border” because his reportorial activities often take him across borders of the continent, is considered worthy of the award because of his intense journalistic duties in documenting the various travel and tourism destination of the continent, is a also a prolific writer and culture advocate, wit almost 8books to his name,
His nomination for the distinguished award was made by the popular broadcaster and social media worker, Anikeade Funke Treasure, Executive Director, Illuminate Nigeria Development Network (Ltd/GTE), and Convener, Sanitary Pad Media Campaign, who wrote:
“It gives me great pleasure to nominate culture and travel journalist, Pelu Awofeso, for the LSA Distinguished Personality Award for the current year, 2026.
I have known the nominee as a colleague in the media and as a good friend for more than two decades. I have also followed Pelu Awofeso’s career for years, with admiration and utmost respect for his doggedness, commitment and his undying passion for Nigeria and its diverse cultures.
He is deserving of this nomination, without sentiment or reservations, more than anyone I know, for the possibilities inherent in our tourism and culture that he continues to showcase, advocate and celebrate.
After earning a B.Sc degree in Geology (1997) at the Ogun State University, Awofeso embraced freelance writing and, later, full-time employment in the Nigerian media industry. That path took him to the Sunday Standard (Jos), Africa Today (Lagos), Network Africa (Port Harcourt) and National Daily (Lagos). In 2012, he started his own publication (Waka-about), where he focused exclusively on Culture, Travel, Hospitality and the Arts.
In the last 12 years, he has served as an associate at The Journalism Clinic, which organises periodic, high-impact training programmes for practicing journalists and media leaders in Nigeria including the NLNG Change Your Story and the Nigeria Media Leaders’ Summit.
In a career spanning more than 25 years, Awofeso’s sole purpose has been to document and promote Nigeria’s unique heritage and tourism assets, at home and abroad. His work has included promoting local and international awareness of Nigerian arts, culture and traditional architecture, among other national assets, especially as they relate to domestic tourism.
Awofeso doesn’t travel for travel’s sake. At the heart of every trip or assignment is a plan to visit at least a museum and a monument in every Nigerian city he finds himself. To date, he has visited no less than 20 museums, private and public. And he has a rich collection of stories on the monuments he has had the opportunities to visit.
Museums and monuments aside, Awofeso is an intellectual traveler. Libraries and archives make up a key part of his journeys and deep research feeds his travel writing. As such, he is registered in at least a half-dozen state-owned libraries and archives across the country. It is therefore not surprising that he is one of the leading names in Nigeria’s domestic tourism space.
His contributions and influence in the culture sector cuts across journalism, publishing, advocacy and consultancy. His multimedia storytelling focuses on the creative arts, festivals and heritage sites. His articles have appeared in many publications, including Daily Mirror, The Sowetan, Africa Today, The Guardian, Kinfolk, World Policy Journal and LOJEL, among others.
In May 2010, Awofeso recorded a career milestone when he won the much-coveted CNN/Multichoice African Journalist Awards in the tourism category, an award celebrating media excellence and stories of impact on the continent.
His body of work has served scholars and researchers alike. He is cited in academic journals, books and periodicals, a notable and recent example being “Imagine Lagos: Mapping History, Place and Politics in a Nineteenth-Century African City” (Ohio University Press 2024), by Prof. Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi). A comprehensive review of his journalism and books can be found in “At The Crossroads: Nigerian Travel Writing and Literacy Culture in Yoruba and English” (James Curry/Boydell & Brewer Ltd/2019), written by Dr. Rebecca Jones (University of Birmingham). Participants, presenters and panellists have also x-rayed “White Lagos”, his book on the Eyo Festival, at a previous edition of the LSA Conference.
Away from the academia, recognitions abound for his work within the travel and culture sectors, making him a multiple award winner. In 2014, UK-based MBE Improver Awards recognised him as “The Best Promoter of Tourism”. In 2017, the Nigeria Tourism Awards named him the Best Tour Guide in Nigeria, and in 2019, they awarded him the much-coveted Best Travel Journalist in Nigeria.
In December 2020, at the Badagry Social Media Award, he was honoured for what the organisers (CityMood magazine) described as his “significant contributions to culture and tourism development of Badagry Local Government and for “your positive projection of the city in the media”.
In addition to writing hundreds of articles for various publications, Pelu Awofeso has also devoted himself to writing books. To date, he has published eight ( titles, each speaking to his travel experiences in Nigeria, West Africa, Africa and other parts of the world. I’ll list them in chronological order:
A Place Called Peace: A Visitor’s Guide to Jos (2003); Nigerian Festivals: The Famous and Not So Famous (2005); Tour of Duty: Journeys Around Nigeria and Sketches of Everyday Life (2010); Route 234: An Anthology of Global Travel Writing by Nigerian Arts & Culture Journalists (2016); White Lagos: A Definitive and Visual Guide to the Eyo Festival (2017); 9 Degrees North: Backpacking Stories Across Nigeria (2020); One For The Road: Travel Stories from Nigeria (2023); Detty Days & City Nights: The Insider’s Guide to Sightseeing Lagos for All Budgets and Seasons (2025).
Beyond books, Pelu has also pushed the frontiers of his journalism with stints in documentary filmmaking, tackling historical subjects and personalities. His 2014 effort titled “Travel Back in Time” follows a bus load of tourists on day-long, eye-opening excursion to the touristy town of Badagry (Lagos, SW Nigeria) to explore slavery heritage dating back four centuries. In 2017, he produced a documentary titled “Rhapsody in White”, which takes viewers behind the scene of the rarely seen Eyo Festival of Lagos.
His most ambitious documentary project and my favourite has to be “In the Footsteps of Bishop Crowther”, a deep dive into the travels and encounters of the 19th century missionary, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, which he started in late 2021. In 2022 and 2024, he released two episodes from the project. All the films were screened at the iRep International Documentary Film Festival held in Lagos. His other short documentary films include: “Finding Mary Slessor” (2021) and “Chibok: Art of the Matter” (2022).
Pelu Awofeso is one of the persons who promoted and popularised going to watch durbars in Nigeria. He gave these durbars visibility on social media when it was not fashionable to do so. He relentlessly gave coverage to the durbars in Ilorin and Kano and ceaselessly talked about the Ojude Oba durbar in Ijebu Ode, in the media, until it became a social media spectacle loved by all.
Conscious of a need to impact the younger generation with his knowledge and experiences in documentary making, Pelu Awofeso accepted being a faculty member of the Media Mentoring Initiative Documentary Fellowship for Students (MMI-DFS), which I run, in 2025.
A recent marker of his journalistic competence is his status as a Contributor, since 2021, to Lonely Planet, one of the world’s biggest guidebook publishers. That, to me, is a concrete marker of his global ranking. So far, he has written a series of digital guides on Lagos and Nigeria, all accessible online. His most recent assignment for the publisher is contributing chapters on Nigeria, Togo, Benin Republic and Niger to the AFRICA Guide, published in 2024. On the back of the Lonely Planet assignment, he’s been travelling through West Africa, documenting stories on the subject of slavery, coastal cities, ancient markets, fishing communities and historical landmarks.
Awofeso is a constant presence at Art X Lagos, West Africa’s biggest fair for artists and collectors and a platform to showcase contemporary culture from Africa. In the early years, he put his knowledge as an arts reporter to bear by volunteering as a docent at the fair, guiding guests around specific booths and installations; in recent years, starting in 2022, he assumed a new role as the fair’s official guide, attached to the participating African artists in the Arts Across Borders (AAB) project.
In recent years, he has been engaged as a Cultural Consultant on a number of projects, including the Moremi Animation Project (2023), jointly produced by Triggerfish Animation Studios & Disney. In 2023, Awofeso was contacted to serve as consultant by a representative of ITN Productions, which produced a special documentary series on Nigeria by Sir Michael Palin. His knowledge of Nigeria and extensive travels within the country over the years proved invaluable to the project, helping the crew and production team plan their overland trips.
The first episode of the series aired on Channel 5 – UK’s third largest commercial TV station in April 2024. It was a classic viral moment that projected Nigeria in a way it had never been seen, it garnered good ratings, and great reviews. According to reports, the episode reached an estimated 1.5 million people and was projected to hit 2.5 million soon afterwards, a good chunk of that number being Nigerians at home and in the diaspora.
Pelu is presently in talks with producers of the Enu Owa Project (2025-26), as a culture consultant, on a documentary planned around inter-faith harmony in Iga Idungaran area, Isale-Eko in Lagos State.
Hundreds of Awofeso’s articles, documenting years of art, culture and travel journalism are archived on a free blog (wakaabout.wordpress.com). He has also uploaded 1,000+ videos from countless field trips and assignments on his YouTube channel (@wakaaboutTV)
A less well known side of Awofeso’s is his environmental advocacy. In 2014, he co-founded Beach Samaritans, with environmentalist, Adesola Alamutu. Together, they led thousands of volunteers to clean up public beaches around Lagos, while also hosting annual lectures, educational and empowering programmes on the marine ecosystem, global warming, recycling, up cycling and beach tourism.
Pelu Awofeso, the tireless, passionate travel journalist also sits on the board of Natineee Empowerment for Sustainable Impact Initiative (NESSII), a not-for-profit organisation catering to the needs of indigent and physically challenged persons.
