One thing has become super clear to me in the course of my work, leading storytelling at Archivi.ng: That popular hot take that Nigerians are terrible at documenting history? It’s simply not true.

We may not always be as meticulous in comparison to some other cultures, but every trip I take into the archives reminds me just how richly documented our past really is. The party scene in 1948. The tribal politics of 1959. The demonisation of soul music in 1971. The archives capture all of it, often with surprising detail, preserving the lives of Nigerians across generations.

I could write a thesis on this, but I’ll leave you with a short version: we’re not that bad at documenting our stories; we just lack the infrastructure that makes what’s been recorded easy to discover.

Every day, that’s the gap Archivi.ng is working to close: to make the discovery of historical records simple and accessible for everyone, everywhere.

This is the last dispatch you’ll receive from me this year. So rather than going over only what we did last month, let's take a trip down the year 2025. What did Archivi.ng, with support from you, accomplish this year?

What Happened in 2025

Millions of eyeballs

• We started this year with big goals for growing our community: we set a 10x increase target across all our social platforms and on the website. With only one month left in the year, we haven’t quite reached that target, but the progress we’ve made is worth noting.
• On Instagram, we began the year with fewer than 3,000 followers and are now close to 18,000, with an average of 1.1 million monthly views.
• Our Twitter audience doubled from 10,000 in January, averaging 1.5 million impressions and 90,000 engagements every month.
• TikTok tells the most remarkable story. From fewer than 100 likes at the start of the year, we’ve grown to nearly 80,000 likes and gained over 7,000 new followers. 
• Visits to our website for historical discovery have also increased by 43% compared to last year.
• This growth has been possible through daily artefacts we share on social media and the deep dives in our quarterly publication, The Archivist. We released lists of 100 underappreciated women in history, 100 Nigerian creators who defined culture before the turn of the millennium, and a detailed breakdown of all Independence Day speeches since 1960.
• Our progress has also been supported by new, consistent formats. Narrative and quote carousels performed strongly across platforms, while video series like Previously in Nigeria and Surviving Old Nigeria expanded the ways audiences now engage with our collection. The success here is impossible without the storytelling contributions of Mariam and Muhammed, and the wonderful designs by Kenny and Adeoluwa to bring the stories to life.
• Every artefact we share, and every story we explore, strengthens the work we do to make Nigerian history discoverable and alive for everyone.

What Happened in November 2025

Instagram was our star of the month

• November was quieter compared to the momentum of earlier months, but there were still a few standout moments.
• Our Previously in Nigeria episode about Nigeria’s forgotten theatre industry received strong praise and more than 1,100 likes on Instagram.
• The carousel story about a woman who faced a Sharia court death sentence in 2002 was liked over 2,000 times and viewed nearly 70,000 times on Instagram.

We’re upskilling for the work ahead

• Last month, Archivi.ng was accepted into the Analytics for a Better World (ABW) Impact Accelerator Programme for 2026. The programme gives us a chance to work with global experts and academic partners to build data and AI solutions that tackle real organisational challenges.
• This is a huge opportunity to strengthen the technical backbone of Archivi.ng’s work, from how we organise information to how we design tools that help people explore Nigeria’s history with clarity.
• I’ll be sharing updates as the programme unfolds next year.

What’s Next: December 2025

A high-priority task for us before the end of the year is to make 50,000 new pages accessible online, bringing the total number of accessible pages on our website to over 100,000. We’ve come a long way, but it’s still early days for the goals we’ve set, as we aim to reach two million pages by the end of our The More Things Change agenda in 2027.

Which brings me to one final point for the year.

We need you

Last month, we launched Archivi.ng Memberships, a way for you and everyone who believes in our work to help sustain it through regular support. The scale of what we plan to do over the next two years is only possible with regular contributions from you, our community.

If you’ve ever read one of our stories, searched our database, or simply felt that Nigerian history deserves better care, this is your chance to ensure the work endures.

Become a member.

See you on January 1, 2026.