Farooq Kperogi

About Farooq Kperogi

His newspaper columns made presidents take notice. Farooq Adamu Kperogi became one of Nigeria's most quoted columnists, a voice sharp enough that former presidents tracked what he wrote.

Born in 1973, Kperogi started where most Nigerian journalists do—in the newsroom. He worked as a reporter and news editor at Daily Trust, one of the country's most respected papers. He also spent time at Daily Triumph and the New Nigerian before it folded.

The newsroom taught him politics and power. During the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, he moved into the Presidential Research and Communications Unit as a researcher. This gave him a front-row seat to how information shapes governance.

By the early 2000s, Kperogi was teaching. He held journalism positions at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and Kaduna Polytechnic. But America was calling. He eventually moved to the United States and joined Kennesaw State University in Georgia as a professor of journalism and emerging media. He rose to full professor, a rank few Nigerians abroad achieve.

His first book arrived in 2015. Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English was published by the University of California as the 96th volume in Berkeley Insights in Linguistics and Semiotic. It explored how English in Nigeria bends and breaks into something entirely new.

His second book hit harder. Nigeria's Digital Diaspora Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation came out in 2020 through the University of Rochester Press. The book won the 2021 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Winner award. It examined how Nigerians in the diaspora use digital platforms to shape democracy back home.

Kperogi kept writing online and in print, bridging the gap between the newsroom and the academy. He became a rare figure—scholar, journalist, columnist, activist—all at once. His work proved that Nigerian media professionals could build serious intellectual careers without abandoning their roots.