In 1998, when he joined his paper’s New York office, Adio enrolled at the Columbia School of Journalism. The following year he was introduced to the Nieman program by one of his professors.

After the pressure of daily journalism, this year’s fellowship came as a welcome break. But his acceptance also came at a time when Adio felt increasingly disillusioned with how he was being treated in the U.S.

“The limited interaction I had with Americans outside the course of work didn’t encourage me to stay here,” he says. “I had experience. I had gotten some sort of a reputation in Nigeria. I come to this society and they ask, ‘Can you speak English?’”

“The thing about America is that people are so arrogant they don’t believe that you know anything,” he continues. “And so you say, ‘OK, by the time I get into the system, I will show them I know something.’”

Adio says he was not alone in being discouraged at the reception of journalists from the developing world.

“If you have several years of experience in Ghana or Nigeria or anywhere, you don’t want to come here and start off as an intern,” he says.

“Believe me,” he adds, “I know the best of the journalists from Nigeria who were educated here in the ’80s—they are doing odd jobs in New York because nobody was ready to give them a chance. Because nobody thought they knew anything at all.”

As Adio worked toward acceptance in the U.S., the political climate in his native country changed drastically. Abacha died in 1998, and Adio sees the potential for democracy to take root in his native country both as a gift and as a challenge to Nigerian journalists.

“An atmosphere of freedom actually put more responsibility on you as a journalist,” he says. “You have a lot of work to do as part of the reconstruction of that society.”

So now, after four years abroad, Adio is preparing to return to Nigeria and cover the country’s tender political situation.

“If you want to be an agent of change,” he says, “you can’t do it from a distance.”

—Staff writer S. Chartey Quarcoo can be reached at quarcoo@fas.harvard.edu.