Investigative Journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, is seeking to work with five young investigative journalists on a long-term media project.
In a social media announcement by the writer and editor, he stated that the roles are based in Lagos and the pay is competitive.
According to Soyombo, “gender, academic discipline, class of degree or length of industry practice do not matter. If you consider yourself a fantastic writer and you have completed tertiary education, please give this a shot.”
Consideration, he said will be given to “candidates who genuinely still believe in Nigeria despite all the odds and are convinced journalism has a critical role to play in the emergence of the Nigeria of our dreams.”
Other qualifications include courage and conviction; passion for investigative reporting and social justice, and being young (regardless of their age). Candidates must also be open to new and unconventional ideas.
Interested candidates are to direct applications, which include a CV containing links to three recently-published stories and an attachment of an essay of no more than 500 words on the topic: Watchdog “Not-Watched Dog”, sent to journalismrecruitment@gmail.com.
All applications are to be submitted by the 21st of August 2020.
Soyombo noted that a prior relationship with him is no criterion for selection.
“If you haven’t been contacted by August 24, it means, unfortunately, that your application was unsuccessful. Please bear with me: due to the pressure of work, I sadly am unable to answer further queries,” Soyombo stated.
The 2009 graduate of Animal Science from the University of Ibadan (UI) pioneered editing the online newspaper, The Cable, before serving as a former editor of Sahara Reporters.
His media career kicked off as a university fresher writing for The Guardian.
Notable amongst his works are “Nigeria’s Customs of corruption, bribery and forgery” which earned him the 2016 Wole Soyinka Investigative Journalist of the Year Award and the three-part series on Nigeria’s criminal justice system which attracted a nomination as the only African for the International Journalist of the Year award, organized by the One World Media (OWM).
He had recently emerged as the co-winner of the People Journalism Prize for Africa (PJPA) 2019 for his undercover report exposing corrupt practices in Nigeria’s judicial system.