Omoyele Sowore

President, Sahara Reporters Media Group Inc.

Biography

Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian activist and free speech advocate who has spent the last 20 years working to promote human rights and democracy in Nigeria, and to stop the militarization and violence that multinational oil companies have brought to his country. For more than 20 years, Omoyele has battled corruption in his home country of Nigeria. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he protested against military rule in favor of democracy as a student activist. He has since turned towards new media as a way of exposing injustices in his country. In 2006, Omoyele founded a groundbreaking multimedia online platform known as “SaharaReporters”. The platform which now includes an online TV & Radio has published and broadcast hundreds of breaking news stories and investigations since its founding, many of which have made significant impact in Nigeria recently leading to the ouster of one of Nigeria's mostly powerful ministers accused of buying two BMW armored cars for $1.6 million.