If you spent any time with Zikoko in 2025, thank you (and congratulations on having taste).
You read our stories. You watched our videos. You shared our links in your group chats. You argued in our comments.
And because you kept showing up, we felt bold enough to push ourselves and do some of our most ambitious work yet.
Halfway through the year, something finally clicked. After months of testing and tweaking, we hit the highest number of readers in a single month of Zikoko’s history. That moment didn’t happen by accident. It came from telling better stories, making them easier to find, and staying deeply committed to work that feels unmistakably Nigerian.
We also continued to step out from behind our screens. Naira Life, our series about how Nigerians navigate money, became a live conference for the first time ever. We brought together finance leaders and everyday Nigerians to talk frankly about earning, spending, saving, and surviving. It felt like an extension of the conversations you’ve spent years having with us.
On YouTube, our Zikoko Life series found a loyal audience and doubled our subscriber count in the space of a month. Those three short films, inspired by real Nigerian experiences, confirmed what we’d always suspected: when a story is honest and well-told, it will travel, regardless of format.
And as the year came to an end, we capped it off with the Zikoko Culture List, a celebration of the 100 Nigerians shaping the moment. It was our way of slowing down and documenting culture with intention.
As proud as we are of 2025, we plan to stretch ourselves even further in 2026.
This year, we’re sharpening Zikoko so it serves you better. We’re building clearer, more community-driven verticals, including dedicated Zikoko Money and Zikoko HER Instagram pages, where conversations about money and womanhood can live fully, not as side notes. Offline, we’ll host our fifth HERtitude event and our second Naira Life conference, continuing to create spaces where connection happens face to face.
We’re also changing how Zikoko shows up in your life. Our newsletters and social pages won’t just point you to the website to “read more” — each platform will offer something unique and distinctly Zikoko. Wherever you choose to meet us, we promise to make it worth your time.
You’ll also see more data-led storytelling from us, built on what Nigerians actually think, feel, and experience. We’re investing in surveys and research that let people speak for themselves at scale. One of the first projects coming out of this is the State of Love Report, an honest look at how Nigerians experience love, relationships, and intimacy.
And because Zikoko is as much your fun friend as it is your smart one, we’re bringing the fun back. Quizzes are returning, along with new games like GridLocked that’ll be your new obsession.
Video will remain a big part of our storytelling, too. There’ll be more releases that tug at your heartstrings, and new shows that reveal unexpected sides to the celebrities you think you already know, including formats like Zikoko Center Stage (an update of Zikoko Underground).
But more than anything, 2026 is about conversation. We want to hear from you. What stories are we missing? What feels urgent right now? What do you want us to experiment with next? Zikoko has always worked best when it listens as much as it speaks.
That’s part of why being back here feels right. This is my third time at Zikoko, and after some time in tech, I realised how much I missed the thoughtful, opinionated, deeply curious people who give Zikoko its pulse.
Everything we’re building in 2026 is with you in mind.
And we’re just getting started.
Daniel Orubo
Editor-in-Chief, Zikoko
