Zannah Mustapha, a Nigerian lawyer and teacher, has won the 2017 UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Nansen Refugees Award for his crucial mediating role and efforts to help children affected by the insurgency in the country.
Mustapha’s The Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School in Maiduguri, which is the capital of Borno state and the centre of Boko Haram violence, stayed open through the insurgency and now provides education to more than 500 students. His school took in children of Nigerian Army soldiers as well as of Boko Haram militants.
Apart from this, he had been instrumental in securing their freedom – as well as the release of 82 additional schoolgirls in May 2017 from Chibok kidnapped by the Boko Haram militant group. The 2017 award ceremony will be held on 2 October in Geneva, Switzerland.