Muazu Modu
Nigeria

Muazu Alhaji Modu is an activist and Social entrepreneur. He has over nine years of experience in civic engagement, specializing in social accountability, democracy and governance, peace building and climate action. He is Founder and Executive Director of Spotlight for Transparency and Accountability Initiative (ST&A), a non-governmental organization whose mission is to empower and work with communities to demand accountability, improve service delivery, strengthen civic engagement and promote democratic governance using technology through its initiatives Citizen-led Tracking, Youth Civic Engagement Academy and Beyond the Ballot.

Citizen-led tracking started in October 2019 leveraging technology has impacted over 1.2 million rural lives in 200 marginalized communities in Northeastern Nigeria. In 2022, Citizen-led tracking emerged as one of the finalists for the Young Global Changers Recoupling by Global Solution Initiative in Berlin, Germany. A finalist for the 2021 African Civic Action Prize by Africtivites in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Top 20 Best Innovation on Democracy and Governance by African Union, 30 Most Inspiring Digital Innovation on SDGs by Portos’s Spindle in the Netherlands and 2022 emerged winner of maiden Active Citizen Award, Award for Civic Activism category by BudgIT in Lagos, Nigeria.

Muazu established Youth Civic Engagement Academy in 2023 to empowers and resourcing young people in Nigeria to take ownership of civic engagements and ensure adequate youth representation in civic space. The academy provides multidimensional capacity building training, leadership development virtual training, mentorship sessions, funding to implement micro civic action projects, and the Youth Idea Summit. The Academy graduated two cohorts of 20 fellows each since its inception where their civic action directly impacted over 200,000 lives.

After the Nigerian general election in 2023, Muazu and his team compiled and published the names, pictures, ages, constituencies, disability status, and tenure of all 994 house of assembly members across 36 states of Nigeria. This had never been done in the history of Nigeria and served to empower citizens to demand accountability form subnational parliament. Soon after, they launched Beyond the Ballot Nigeria to increase transparency and citizen engagement in the subnational parliament in Nigeria.

Muazu is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow, a 2021 African Civic Engagement Academy, University of Georgia alumnus, a 2021 Ashoka Changemakers Everywhere Academy alumnus, and a 2022 Young Global Changer by Global Solution Initiative.