A few weeks ago, the National Museum called with an offer we couldn't refuse.

Ongoing renovations at the museum meant its collection of old newspapers and magazines needed a new home. The next day, Kehinde and Fu’ad visited the museum to inspect the materials. They met enormous piles of newspapers and magazines stretching back decades before either of them was born.

We have only just begun sorting through the collection, but even during that first visit, we found papers from as far back as the 1940s.

But not everything survived. Termites had already damaged parts of the collection, and some materials were beyond saving. But enough remained to fill an entire truck from floor to ceiling. We spent an entire day loading them at the museum and unloading at our office, where they are now being fumigated before inventory and digitisation can begin.

And here’s the most exciting part: we do not yet know everything we’ve rescued. Somewhere inside those stacks are publications we have never seen before. Some contain stories that exist nowhere else. Others are among the last surviving copies in existence. Once preserved and digitised, they become part of a historical record we can help anyone, anywhere to directly access. That’s only the beginning of what’s possible when you support our work.

What Happened in June 2026

The Archivist is finally live!

• After months of planning, filming and editing, we released the first episode of The Archivist on YouTube. If you have somehow missed it, this is your sign to go watch. And while you are there, subscribe to the channel. It will make Mariam happy.
• Another story that finally made it out of the drafts was Regina Musili’s mysterious disappearance from a Lagos neighbourhood in 1977, under circumstances that left behind more questions than answers. 
• For our weekly carousels, we returned to a 1993 discussion on what life felt like for Nigerians during a period of economic hardship. Another carousel returned to a 1973 conversation probing why Nigerians were having too much sex.
• We also revisited USA '94, when the Super Eagles made their World Cup debut, reached the Round of 16, and set a standard no other Nigerian team has surpassed at the tournament.
• On Previously in Nigeria, we looked back at the story of Nigeria’s deaf boxing champion and how a promising sporting career eventually came to a tragic end. We also revisited the 1973 All Africa Games, when Nigerian officials found themselves confronting a problem they did not want visitors to see in Lagos: the growing population of beggars on the city’s streets.
• Our work reached nearly six million people this month, and generated more than 120,000 engagements. We also welcomed more than 13,000 new followers into our community.

The archive keeps growing

• In June, we digitised 10,950 new pages from publications including In Leisure Hours, Corporate Digest, Banking and Finance for Africa, The Rotarian Magazine, Ukpabi Asika, ThisDay and many others.

What’s Next: July 2026

Next month, we will launch The Election Context Project (ECP), our effort to help Nigerians understand present political issues through historical records. We teased the project with a story about how the price of presidential nomination forms has risen between 1993 and 2026. You’ll hear more about ECP from July 1.

The second episode of The Archivist is also on the way. Members of our WhatsApp channel have already seen some BTS moments from the day of production. If you are not in the channel yet, now is a good time to join us there for all the behind-the-scenes at Archivi.ng.

See you on July 27.