Since I started working at Archivi.ng, a friend occasionally asks if digging through Nigerian history has changed how I see the country.

I spend a lot of time in the archives, deciding what stories to share on our channels, so I see plenty. There’s a strange repetition to it all: a popular 419 scheme in 1948, the Lagos politician with a date of birth scandal in 1951, trigger-happy police officers in 1991. The patterns build up slowly, but once they appear, you can’t unsee them. Politics runs in loops, division gets repackaged, and social problems follow the same old script.

I’m cynical enough not to be haunted by these stories, but they still manage to shock me, not because they happened, but because they still do.

History should help us do better. It should sharpen our awareness of what we’ve endured too long, and stretch our sense of what’s possible. Archivi.ng’s work is to open a window into the past, to help light the way towards a future shaped by better choices.

Here’s how we advanced that mission last month.

What Happened In May 2025

Let’s start with sensemaking: We were on Arise TV… sort of

• Our newspaper artefacts travelled far in May. When JAMB fumbled the UTME results, we stepped in with three key stories that traced the board’s operational issues as far back as 32 years ago. They offered much-needed historical context at a moment of public outrage, grounding the conversation in precedent. 
• The artefacts reached more than 400,000 people on Twitter alone. Arise TV’s Vimbai Mutinhiri even referenced them live on air while unpacking the backlash. 
• Another standout artefact was a 1991 feature on how Aliko Dangote made his money. It struck a chord, racking up 146,000 views on Twitter and over 30,000 on TikTok.
• The rhythm we’ve established with our videos is starting to pay off across our platforms. For months now, Mariam has been quietly shaping a style that turns Nigeria’s most curious stories into short, sharp takes: easy to watch, but rich with context. That balance matters to us. 

In May, we hit a strong stride: we told the story of the fraud who became Nigeria’s fourth most powerful man in 1999, unpacked the rise and fall of Nigeria Airways, traced the ugly 1980s panic behind the Ghana Must Go bag, and explored Nigeria’s greatest moonshot.

Now let’s talk access: DRUM roll…

• I ended the last dispatch with a promise to tell you why the next upload on the site is my absolute favourite find in our archives. That upload is DRUM magazine. More than 3,000 pages, spanning the 1960s and 1970s, are now live on Archivi.ng.
• So why’s it my favourite? DRUM stands out for being bold, visual, and telling stories deeply in tune with everyday life. For someone like me, who’s drawn to the overlap of memory, media, and the quiet margins of the archives, DRUM feels like an invitation to see history in a new light. It’s how I found the story of Johnson Banjo from 1968. You can also fall in love with DRUM by starting here.

Digitisation: More papers are coming!

• The wheel of digitisation is still turning swiftly, and May saw progress with half a dozen new publications scanned.
• We digitised more pages from Newswatch, TELL, and The African Guardian, covering the 1970s through to the mid-1990s. These will soon join the growing collection already accessible on our website.
• I’m particularly excited about the new entrants that we digitised. TRUST is a sister publication to DRUM, so that says plenty already. FLAMINGO was an African family magazine, just as striking in the subjects it tackled and its visual style. It proved invaluable for a story we curated about Ojukwu for the May 30 remembrance of the Nigerian Civil War.

The Archivist: Issue 4

• It took 43 days to arrive, but the new issue of The Archivist is finally here. If Temitayo Akinyemi’s editor’s note slipped past you, you missed one of Nigerian pop culture’s most provocative stories. Here’s your chance to read it.
• Our first story of the issue looks at Nollywood’s sexploitation years and the consequences that followed for everyone involved. The story, along with its illustrations, has drawn thoughtful responses from our community and is well worth catching up on if you missed it.
• Up next, we travelled 20 years into the past, the year Nairaland was born and became one of the earliest online communities where Nigerians could gather to express themselves. The goal of our experiment was to determine just how much the Nigeria of that era has changed compared to what we have now. We made some interesting discoveries.

What’s Next: June 2025

One thing to look forward to in June is the wrap of the first cohort of The Archivi.ng Fellowship. Over the past five months, our fellows have been interrogating history and producing work that unpacks the Nigerian story through a podcast, a documentary, an animated non-fiction short, and a series of essays. When the time comes to share these projects with the world, you’ll be the first to know.

Blasts from the past

Here’s something I’m most excited about for this month.

Our next story for The Archivist is an effort to remember and honour the Nigerian creators who laid the foundations for today’s vibrant creative economy, and are mostly lost to history. If you’re Gen Z, like me, you probably don’t know many of them because they produced their best work before you were born. You’ll understand my excitement once you see this spotlight soon.

Until then, I’ll leave you with this Steve Monite song I found while working on the story with Muhammed.

See you on July 1.