Winner – Juliana Francis

Juliana Francis’ four-part investigative report, ‘For filthy lucre, police truncate defilement, rape cases, deny victims justice’, published in New Telegraph February 10, February 17, February 24 and March 3 2022, is an exposé into how police officers, misuse their position to truncate justice for sexual and gender-based violence.

The investigative report showed how police officers change statements and charges, remove medical results showing the survivors were raped and sometimes allow the perpetrator to escape.

Commended – Gbenga Salau

For anyone with a knack for anything with claims of foreign origin as authentic, reading the story, ‘How Ghanaian herbal products are manufactured, marketed in Nigeria’, published in The Guardian on 25 September 2022, by Gbenga Salau, will help to have a rethink. The story revealed sharp practices by some Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria that use foreign addresses and telephone numbers on the labels for their products.

After three months surveillance across different locations in Lagos scouting for herbal products allegedly produced in Ghana, Gbenga Salau visited Accra and Kumasi to establish and identify the actual source and production base of about six herbal drinks.

After initially denying that the morgue was overwhelmed by corpses, most of whom were victims of extrajudicial killings and ruling out plans for mass burial, the management of Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, came out months later to announce plans to carry out mass burial, in response to the report.

Winner – Taiwo Hassan Adebayo

‘Pandora Papers series’ is a six-part story by Taiwo Hassan Adebayo, Editor/Head, Investigations and Data, Premium Times, published from 4 to 19 October 2021 as part of the global Pandora Papers, a collaborative journalism effort.

The series lay bare the entanglement of Nigerian elites and political class in global illicit movement of suspect funds across jurisdictions. Adebayo did this story using a collection of secondary data from about 12 million leaked files.

Runner-Up – Folashade Ogunrinde

The story ‘Policies and the people: How the Lagos State Government’s mega city drive is worsening its housing deficit’ by Folashade Ogunrinde, a news editor and producer with TV360, aired 30 September 2022. It delved deep into the claims of the Makoko/Iwaya fishing community and the redevelopment culture and plans of the Lagos State Government.

The story brings to fore the flawed redevelopment strategies of the government, how the poorest in society often become the casualties of government’s redevelopment plans.

Commended – Olanrewaju Oyedeji

‘NotebookGate 1,2,3: Investigation into Oyo State’s Notebook Production Contract Corruption’ is a three-part story by Olanrewaju Oyedeji, that ran on Dataphyte from 1 April to 1 August 2022, about the Oyo State open contracting portal.

The report which covers 2019 to 2021 reveals that the state government awarded contracts worth N1.2 billion to companies owned by same persons in contravention of its open contracting laws. The report further unearthed how the owners of the companies are linked to the state governor through social network analysis.

Winner – Deji Lambo

A photo essay captioned ‘Poisonous ponmo: How Lagos traders sell cow-skin meat roasted with tyres, plastic pellets to unsuspecting Nigerians’ by Deji Lambo in Punch Newspaper on 31 December 2021 provides photo evidence to the despicable manner cowhide meat processors in Nigeria had been using disused tyres, plastic, among other chemically infested substances to roast the beloved brown cowhide, popularly called ponmo.

The sequences of the photographs from processing till packaging of cow skin meat (Ponmo), exposed the health hazards Nigerian consumers face.

Commended – Olatunji Obasa

The front-page visual story ‘Cry for rescue’ published 15 April 2022 in the Punch Newspaper by Olatunji Obasa, a senior photojournalist with the newspaper, captured the emotions of families of over 160 passengers who were on a train that was attacked on Kaduna-Abuja Road in northern Nigeria.

The photo collage showed families of the abducted passengers at different gatherings crying and begging for freedom of the train passengers who the abductors threatened to kill in a viral video.

Winner – Abdulaziz Abdulaziz

Villages in northern Nigeria–starting from communities in Zamfara State to Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto have been under the grip of criminals and the bandits for over a decade. Thousands of people are displaced, hundreds are dead.

‘Nigeria’s Banditry – the Inside Story’ produced by Abdulaziz Abdulaziz and aired on Trust TV on 5 March 2022 weaves an intricate portrait of the insecurity that has since become the country’s major headache. Through months of research and rare access to key actors, the report traced the roots of the systemic failures and presents how the dereliction of duty by leaders perpetuates injustice.

Runner-Up – Amadin Uyi

Worried about how public access roads in Abuja, Nigeria, are sold to private citizens by government officials in disruption to the Land masterplan, Amadin Uyi, Abuja Bureau Chief, New Central Television, investigated the issue.

His report titled ‘Abuja land racketeering – Government officials turn blind eye’ aired 15 March 2022 on News Central Television. It exposed how city officials responsible for ensuring that the Land Masterplan is not altered turn blind eye as private individuals develop the lands at the detriment of the public.

Commended – Zainab Bala

‘Nigeria’s maternal death race’, a three-part documentary by Zainab Bala, a broadcast journalist at Trust TV, uncovers some reasons for the rising number of maternal deaths in Nigeria.

Taking viewers through the journey of women in two northern states of Nigeria – Niger and Kano and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the journalist chronicles how bad governance is impacting on reproductive health and rights of women.

Winner – Babatunde Okunola

Babatunde Okunlola is the Head of Programmes/Content at Diamond FM in Osun. His documentary ‘Gold rushes & landgrabs’ aired on 21 September 2022 investigates the illegal mining of gold by both artisanal and illegal Chinese miners which has birthed landgrabs and displacements in communities in Ijesaland, Osun State, Nigeria.

The report focused provided ample evidence as it told the story of people who were deceived to surrender their lands. In doing the story, the reporter took painstaking effort to interview some illegal miners, traditional heads, non-governmental organisations, lawmakers and other state actors.

Winner – Victor Asowata

Victor Asowata is the cartoon editor, The Will Newspaper. His cartoon ‘Weaponised poverty’ published on 26 June 2022 illustrates how politicians weaponise the poverty vicious circle, created by them to manipulate elections, while the Police officer who should guard against it looks away.

The price tag on every vote, which ranges from N500, N5000 to N10,000 and much more is very tempting for poverty-stricken people yet, it perpetuates bad governance.

Runner-Up – Chukwuemeka Emenike

Published 9 May 2022, the cartoon by Chukwuemeka Emenike, Assistant Chief Cartoonist, New Telegraph, is a satire of how the status of an individual rather than the offence determines the type of judgement he or she gets in Nigeria.

Chukwuemeka Emenike gave a pictorial representation of how the poor gets tied to the stake for execution over a N500 crime, while the wealthy fellow citizen carrying millions of looted funds goes free. It captures the irony in the justice system where petty thieves are visited with severe punishment but looters of the economy are left to enjoy their loot against the background of the coming election.