Top Nigerian journo, Soyombo makes OWM’s international award longlist
Founder/Editor of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Fisayo Soyombo, is on the 10-man longlist for the 2021 edition of One World Media’s International Journalist of the Year award.
It is the second time in a row that he has been long-listed for the award, having gone ahead to earn a place on the three-man shortlist in 2020, before seeing the award go to BBC’s John Sudworth.
This year, Soyombo is joined on the longlist by Bel Trew of The Independent, Diana Cariboni of openDemocracy, Drew Ambrose of Al Jazeera English, Fabio Teixeira of Thomson Reuters Foundation, Katie McQue of The Washington Post, Nawal Al-Maghafi of BBC, Suadad Al-Salhy of Middle East Eye, Thaslima Begum of The Guardian and Timour Azhari of Al Jazeera and Newlines Magazine.
His place on the longlist was for ‘Portraits of Blood’, his three-part series on the raid on #EndSARS protesters by Nigerian soldiers on October 20, 2020.
The latest honour in his highly decorated media career came two months after he won the second prize in the Fetisov Journalism Award, described by organisers as “the most lucrative journalism award in history”.
Soyombo won the award for his undercover investigation on Nigeria’s criminal justice system which was funded by TheCable and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).
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To experience the workings of the system in its raw state, he adopted the pseudonym Ojo Olajumoke and feigned an offence for which he was arrested and detained in police custody, arraigned in court and eventually remanded in prison.
Two months earlier, in December 2020, Soyombo had also won the Local Reporter category of the 2020 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.
Before the victory, it was the third time in six years, the others being 2014 and 2016, that he had been short-listed for the Kurt Schork awards, which recognise excellence in courageous reporting of conflict, corruption, human rights transgressions and other related issues.
In 2020 alone, Soyombo either won or was short-listed for the Fetisov Journalism Awards (Outstanding Investigation category), the West Africa Media Excellence Award (Investigative Reporting category), the WJP Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism, the One World Media Awards (International Journalist of the Year category) and the People Journalism Prize for Africa (PJPA).
The three-time winner of the Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting, Soyombo is a former Editor of TheCable, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and SaharaReporters.
He founded FIJ in late 2020 as an independent, non-for-profit organisation that combats injustice, holds power to account and speaks for the voiceless, seeking to uncover the truth by bypassing officialdom and neutralizing propaganda.
