| Pelu Awofeso | |
| Nationality: | Nigerian |
| Occupation: | Journalist, travel-writer, tour guide |
| Known For: | Tour guiding, travel writing |
| Awards: | CNN/Multichoice African Journalists Award |
Pelu Awofeso is a Nigerian journalist, travel and culture writer, based in Lagos, Nigeria. He is a winner of the CNN/Multichoice African Journalists Awards in the Tourism Category. He is often described as "Nigerian foremost travel writer."[1] He is also a published author.
Awofeso claims to have become interested in travelling after a first encounter with the city of Jos in Plateau State of Nigeria in 1998.[2] The encounter, which involved being awed by the beauty of the city as well as coming across "writing from the past by the British" who documented their travels during the times they lived in Nigeria as colonialists, inspired him to take up travel as a hobby., he has visited over 32 states out of Nigeria's 36[3] and written about a number of them. His work has been compared to Looking for Transwonderland by Noo-Saro-Wiwa.[4]
In 2010, while he worked for 234Next, Awofeso won the CNN/MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award in the Tourism Category.[5] [6]
Awofeso is the publisher of an online travel magazine called Waka About.[7] He is also the editor of Route 234, a book of travel stories described as "a collection of stories from Nigerian journalists detailing personal experiences while on journeys outside Nigeria"[8] What it represents, "overall, is an intervention in a space where much more effort of this nature is needed."[9]
In 2010, he published Tour of Duty, a book "which documents ten months travelling the width and breadth of Nigeria, and tells the stories of people and places he encounters on the way, from the sand sellers of Yenagoa to hunters in Osogbo."[10]
Awofeso, in 2014, also founded a group called "Beach Samaritans" who walk around beaches in Lagos for the purpose of cleaning them of debris and unwanted trash.[11]