When Mahbubat Kanyinsola Salahudeen opened a sports media website she had contributed to for months, she expected to see the archive of work that had defined her early professional career, match reports, long-form analysis, grassroots features, and women’s football coverage written between March and October 2025.
Instead, she found something else, her name was gone, and her profile had disappeared. More than 200 articles she authored no longer carried her byline. Some had been stripped of attribution, while others were deleted entirely. Yet, there was no prior notice, no formal termination, and no warning.
“To my greatest shock,” she told Techparley Africa, “I realised that I’d been removed from the work group and when I checked the website, I realised that my byline and pictures to over 200 of my articles had been removed.”
Techparley Africa first learned of the matter through a LinkedIn post by Salahudeen. What initially appeared to be a personal grievance quickly revealed deeper structural concerns about copyright ownership, moral rights, freelance exploitation, and attribution ethics in Nigeria’s fast-growing digital sports media ecosystem.
Following her post, we engaged Salahudeen directly and reviewed her documentation, correspondence, and timeline of events. What emerges is not just an employment dispute, but a case that raises urgent questions about intellectual property protections for young journalists.
The identity of the organization at the center of the dispute is being withheld at the request of victim’s legal counsel, as court proceedings are being prepared.
A Rising Sports Journalist, and a Clear Professional Trajectory
Salahudeen is not an anonymous content contributor. She is a graduate of Media Communications and Public Relations from the University of Ibadan and has built a focused reporting niche at the intersection of grassroots sports, women’s football, and youth development.
She is the founder of the Stellar Youth Project, an initiative spotlighting emerging Nigerian sports talents and connecting them to growth pathways.
With more than three years of reporting experience, she has covered high-level competitions including the CAF Champions League, the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and other continental sporting tournaments.
She is also a two-time recipient of the Girl Up Sports Scholarship Fund by the United Nations Foundation, and a winner of the 2025 University of Ibadan Ivory Award for Best Student Journalist.
In short, this is a journalist with verifiable credentials and a growing professional footprint.
₦25,000 Per Month for 60+ Articles: The Economics of Vulnerability
According to Salahudeen, she began working with the unnamed organization in March 2025 after being verbally assured by HR, who also served as Chief Vision Officer, that “my articles are mine.”
Her agreement required her to produce two articles per day for a monthly payment of ₦25,000. That structure translates to roughly 60 articles per month, meaning each article was effectively valued at just over ₦400.
From August onward, she began producing long-form pieces in addition to the short 250-word daily reports initially required. The financial structure is significant. Industry lawyers note that payment alone does not automatically transfer copyright ownership unless expressly stated in a written assignment.
Salahudeen maintains that her signed contract contained no clause addressing copyright ownership.
“I clarified that the issue was not about sports business but about ethics and proper rights attribution,” she told Techparley Africa. “I also referred to the contract that was signed, noting that it did not contain any clause addressing copyright ownership.”
The organization, in response to her lawyer’s letter, has denied any infringement, maintaining that she was paid as a freelancer and that payment extinguished any claim to the work.
The Sudden Erasure: Removal Without Notice
The turning point came in December. After agreeing in October that she would resume work in the second week of December following her final examinations in school, Salahudeen says she discovered on December 1st of last year that she had been removed from the company’s work group. There had been no termination letter, no explanation, and no prior warning.
“The only reason I got to know was because I came across a job offer that I wanted to apply [for], but I was unable to because they (my stories) no longer carried my name,” she explained.
When she checked the website, her byline and images had been removed from over 200 articles. Later, the company would state she authored 196 articles, a number she disputes. Eventually, all of the articles, 196 or 200+, were removed entirely.
The deletion occurred after she raised formal objections. From an industry ethics standpoint, removal of attribution raises concerns around moral rights, the author’s right to be credited for their work is a principle widely recognized in copyright systems globally.
Resolution Attempts, and Procedural Red Flags
Salahudeen says she reached out first to the Chief Vision Officer, who redirected her to another company owner. After weeks without resolution, she warned that she would “be forced to take the necessary steps.”
She later received a voice note response stating that “the articles never belonged to me” and that she “lacked an understanding of sports business.”
A meeting was eventually scheduled for January 19, but when the maltreated journalist requested that it be recorded for reference purposes. The request was declined.
She then suggested involving witnesses, but there was no response, and the meeting was later cancelled unilaterally.
However, shortly afterward, she received a letter stating that all her articles had been removed from the website. At that point, she escalated to legal counsel.
A Larger Industry Problem: Attribution in Nigeria’s Digital Media Boom
While this case will ultimately be resolved in court, it underscores a broader issue in Nigeria’s expanding digital media landscape, the fragile copyright position of young freelancers.
In many fast-growing sports and tech media startups, contracts often lack explicit intellectual property clauses as most freelancers operate without legal literacy, couple with the fact that, attribution practices are inconsistently enforced.
Payment structures blur the line between employment and commissioned work. When disputes arise, young journalists often lack documentation, or leverage.
Salahudeen’s case is unusual precisely because she preserved evidence. Her story is not just about erased bylines. It is about erased professional identity. For early-career journalists, digital archives function as portfolios, credentials, and gateways to opportunity.
“When I came across other opportunities, I couldn’t apply because I didn’t have articles on global football that carried my name,” she said. “Some of my best articles and analysis were on that website.”
Beyond One Case: A Test of Ethical Publishing Standards
At its core, this dispute forces a difficult but necessary question:
- Can payment alone nullify authorship where no written copyright transfer exists?
Legal scholars would argue that copyright assignment requires explicit agreement. Moral rights, particularly the right of attribution, are even harder to extinguish.
The pending court case may provide important judicial clarity. But regardless of the outcome, the episode serves as a cautionary tale for freelancers in sports, tech, and digital publishing.
For media founders, it is a reminder that ethical publishing is not merely about traffic and scale, it is about contractual transparency and respect for creative labor. And for young journalists, it is a warning to never assume verbal assurances are sufficient.
Talking Points
As court proceedings loom, this dispute transcends a routine freelancer–publisher disagreement and enters the more consequential terrain of intellectual property governance, moral rights, and digital labour ethics.
The organization’s position, that payment as a freelancer extinguishes ownership, will likely be tested against the foundational copyright principle that authorship vests initially in the creator unless expressly assigned in writing.
If, as Salahudeen asserts, no copyright transfer clause exists and verbal assurances were given that “my articles are mine,” the case may hinge not only on contractual interpretation but also on the doctrine of attribution and the protection of moral rights.
Beyond legal technicalities, however, the broader industry implication is stark, in digital publishing ecosystems where archives function as living résumés, the removal of a byline is not merely editorial housekeeping, it is the disruption of professional identity and economic opportunity.
For emerging journalists, particularly young women navigating precarious freelance structures, such actions expose structural vulnerabilities in media contracting practices.
Regardless of the court’s eventual determination, this case speaks of an urgent need for clearer intellectual property frameworks, transparent freelance agreements, and enforceable attribution standards within Nigeria’s rapidly expanding digital media landscape.
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