Wole Soyinka Awards for Investigative Journalism (2008)

Last Saturday, I went with a friend, Dr Sola Olorunyomi, to the presentation of prizes for excellence in investigative reporting. The awards were instituted in 2005, and it awards prizes in the print, broadcast (both TV and Radio) and photo journalism. Although the banner says it awards prizes in online journalism none was awarded.

I had discussed the poor state of journalism in Nigeria just a few days before then with a journalist. It is interesting to see the wide income gap between reporters and their editorial bosses. Some reporters earn as little as 50 thousand naira a month – and many of them are MA degree holders – while the editors, apart from getting money from politicians who want favourable reports, have all the perks enjoyed by their counterparts in, say the banking sector. Of course, this means that over time, those who are good and are really interested in journalism are discouraged from pursuing careers in journalism simply because they cannot get an income from the sector. And those who stay have to resort to accepting ‘brown envelopes’. By the way, I was an intern in a newspaper house at some point so I have first-hand knowledge of how this works. At the end, journalism becomes a tool for the promotion of certain interests – don’t worry, I know that it is so all over the world, but it is sometimes disgustingly so around here – either because the editor has been bribed so that the paper does ‘features’ on certain persons or issues or kills a story, or because the reporter has been offered a brown envelope so that they present a favourable point of view. It also leads to simply making news stories out of press releases.

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L-R, Mr Dapo Olorunyomi, Chief of Staff of EFCC; Representative of the Dutch embassy; Mr Muraina of ThisDay; Mr Adebayo of FRCN; Mr Akinlabi of Tell; Mr Badmus of Channels TV; and Mr Dewar, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria.

This background info makes the works that were rewarded at the ceremony even more impressive. The winning entry in the prints category is a series of stories on Iyabo Obasanjo, whose name keeps coming up like the proverbial bad coin in corruption cases. The series of stories were written by Mr Muraina Olufunso of ThisDay newspapers. The prize for the photo journalism category went to an entry from Mr Ademola AKinlabi of Tell. In the radio broadcast category, the prize went to Mr Solomon Adebayo reporter with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Abuja, who did a story on the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency and hawkers in Abuja. The series of reports he did showed depressing levels of corruption in the Environmental Protection Agency, even up to the point that some workers in the agency kept private, illegal detention centres to hold hawkers who refuse to bribe them. The report led to the intervention of the police force, the release of the detainees and the arrest of the officials. It was even more impressive that the entry was from the state-owned radio network.

The winning TV entry, which was also the overall winning entry, is from Mr Deji Badmus of Channels Television. The report was on the Police Equipment Fund. It showed different layers of corruption, layers too nuanced to write about in this short space. Suffice it to say that the report was really impressive, in the coverage of the issue, and in the presentation of the efforts of the reporter and results of the investigation.

At the end of the programme, I asked Mr Steve Aborishade, the coordinator of the awards, why there was no prize for online journalism. He replied that there was only one entry in the category. I promised to post about it and to encourage bloggers to submit entries for the next edition. Bloggers, even if you are not in Nigeria you can still submit an entry here.