--On forumite Babatunde Jaiyeoba and investigative journalism by Augustine Togonu-bickersteth,london,england
Greetings Mr Babatunde Jaiyeoba. you have asked a million-dollar question, but I would try
and answer it. you would like to know what's responsible for the lull in investigative journalism in Nigeria.
I want to believe there is still a modicum of investigative reports taking place
If you are to go by the existence of institutions like, the international canter for investigative journalism in Abuja, Wole Soyinka canter for investigative journalism and the premium times is part of a worldwide consortium on investigative journalism particularly as it concerns the Pandora papers. You have rightly mentioned the Sahara reporters.
What you might find out is that nobody or almost no one has been apprehended based on their investigative reports so it's almost like a futile exercise. There other problem is the short attention span in the age of social media. Investigative reports tend to be detailed and exhaustive there might not be too attractive in the age of social media. In the age of grasshopper minds.
What's more the capacity to shock or provoke Nigerians with news reports seems to be gradually disappearing.so we move from one shocking story to an even more shocking story. a Some may be apprehended and later pronounced not guilty,
How many investigative reports do you want to write in Nigeria? Things have gotten out of hand.
If investigative reports have to work, then you have to have reliable judiciary and police and participating citizens or should i add a critical mass of societally conscious citizens.
If investigative journalism has got to work with the judiciary doing its job and with the right kind of police then it has to be properly funded, fuel bills, hotel bills, refreshment, maybe flight tickets around the world etc. but here you have journalists who are employed but not paid and are t being told that having a by line in a newspaper or accepted as a reporter in a newspaper is a license to print money.
Now if you are told that a former Nigerian leader has a multi-billion-dollar oil refinery in a south American country x
Make the proposal to your editor if he does not kill the story, you at least have to find the money to go to country x to see if there is indeed such an oil refinery. it all depends on whose interest the newspaper proprietor is serving and also the editor of the newspaper, some stories can affect the stream of income of the newspaper like social diary, birthday, supplements or just our right advertisement or outright cheque book journalism,
Personally, i look at investigative journalism as firefighting which is not what journalists should be doing rather i want them in fire prevention, i want them to look forward rather than looking back and digging graves that's why i am in favour of writing stories of those struggling to do positive things. A lot of people are into wrong doing because there is no alternative (TINA ) . our start-up's, Scaled up to unicorns can create these alternatives.
Let me also add there are occupational hazards: no story is worth a journalist's life.
Nigerian police do not have the capacity in many respects to apprehend people who have committed heinous crimes so that it serves as a deterrent to others. People are not afraid of committing crime in Nigeria or even more violent crimes and it is that environment you want some to practice investigative journalism which dwells a lot on corruption, fraud and other criminal activity. No story is worth a journalist's life
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