For their outstanding reports in various categories, winners and runners-up have emerged for the 18th Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) with the support of the Netherlands Embassy.
Editor of Dubawa, Kemi Busari, won the online category with his piece ‘INVESTIGATION: ‘Baba Aisha Herbal Medicine’: The deadly concoction consumed by many Nigerians’ while Beloved John of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting platform was runner-up with her story ‘London Graduate School: The ‘Degree Mill’ selling fake honorary doctorate to Africans.’
In the Television category, Sharon Ijasan of TVC News won with her two-part story ‘Human trafficking sad realities of trafficked Nigerians in Libya, West Africa’; while Lami Sadiq of Daily Trust won the print category with her work ‘Organ exploitation: How Abuja syndicate lured minor for kidney harvest’.
Victor Asowata of The Will Newspaper was runner-up in the cartoon category with ‘Power Grabbers 2023’, while Omolabake Fasogbon’s ‘Inside Story of Lagos Building Collapse where Regulator Mortgage Lives for as low as N50,000)’ in ThisDay, Ayodele Adeniran’s ‘Naira Swap’ in The Guardian, Chukwuemeka Emenike’s ‘Failure of regulatory agencies’ in New Telegraph, Marcus Fatunmole’s “How North Korean runs illegal hospital patronised by the high and mighty in Abuja” in ICIR, and Folashade Ogunrinde’s ‘JusticeforBamishe: How lawyers’ absence, slack laws, courts’ apathy dampen families’ hope for justice’ were commended in the print, photo, cartoon, online and television category respectively.
WSCIJ conferred both the Human Rights Defender Award and Lifetime Award for Journalistic Excellence posthumously on Lai Oso for his remarkable contribution to human rights and the field of journalism and awarded 10 journalists.
In his opening remarks, WSCIJ Board Chair, Professor Ropo Sekoni, stated that the award has achieved the age of maturity, and if it were a human being, it would be voting. According to him, seeing the awards to 18 years, is reflective of WSCIJ’s commitment to the protection and promotion of democracy in Nigeria.
Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Nigeria, Wouter Plomp, represented by Jessica Odudu, Senior Advisor on Political Affairs, Human Rights and Communication, delivered a goodwill message. She noted that the awards serve as a beacon of encouragement to journalists, adding that the Embassy of Netherlands in Nigeria is proud to join forces with the WSCIJ to protect the civic space and tackle misinformation.
According to Chair of the 2023 Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting Judges’ Board, Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika, , WSCIJ received 244 entries, but only 99 entries (print – 29, online – 45, TV – 7, radio – 2, photo – 8, and editorial cartoon – 8) met the criteria for further screening and 10 finalists emerged.
Ogwezzy-Ndisika saluted the finalists’ courage in doing the winning stories. She stated that the stories dealt with human-interest issues that affect Nigerians the most; and if addressed, will curtail the aggravated exposure to poverty (in fact multidimensional poverty), hunger, lack of access to education, poor access to quality health care, human right abuses, inequalities between female and male persons and other issues that have kept the nation having motion without movement.
Read about the 10 winning works here.
