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Fisayo Soyombo
Investigative Journalist

Heroes Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism

In the heart of Nigeria's media landscape, Fisayo Soyombo is an Investigative journalist whose unwavering commitment to truth and justice has become a beacon of hope.

 

Born on October 27, 1985, in Lagos, Nigeria,

With a passion for social justice, Soyombo has dedicated his career to shedding light on issues that affect everyday Nigerians. 

 

Fisayo Soyombo, an Animal Scientist by discipline and journalist by profession, has 18 years of professional media experience.

 

He is currently the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). At SaharaReporters, TheCable and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), where he worked as Editor, he oversaw all editorial processes of the online newspapers.

 

Soyombo is best remembered as the Nigerian journalist who spent five days in a police cell as a suspect and eight as an inmate in Ikoyi Prison — to track corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system, after which the authorities contemplated arresting him, or the journalist who drove the equivalent of a stolen vehicle from Abuja to Lagos, passing through a whopping 86 checkpoints in a journey of over 1,600km that lasted a cumulative 28hours 17minutes.

 

Before then, though, he had investigated the abandonment of soldiers injured in battle against Boko Haram, corruption in the handling of corpses at government-run mortuaries and cemeteries, theft of foodstuffs at NEMA stores and IDP camps in Borno, the plunder of Ebola funds in Liberia, corruption by men of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at Apapa Port, the travails of cancer patients undergoing treatment at government-owned hospitals, the extortion of national ID card-seeking members of the public by NIMC officials, and, way back in 2013, the brutality of ethnocentric killings in Plateau State.

 

In 2019, he went gone under cover for three weeks as a patient of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos. And in 2021, he unveiled the massacre of #ENDSARS protesters by the Army and the subsequent efforts by government agents to cover it up. In 2022, he exposed religious leaders who cook up fake prophecies in exchange for cash. Most recently, he investigated a popular Nigerian orphanage selling babies under the table, and ended up buying himself a baby for N2 million.

 

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