Fisayo Soyombo, a Freelance investigative journalist from Nigeria has won the “Local Reporter” category of the Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.
Soyombo won the award for his undercover story of Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
The investigation, sponsored by Nigeria’s TheCable and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) exposed the deep corruption in the system.
Soyombo is highly respected by the Nigerian people for his regular show of courage and accurate investigations.
During his investigation of the criminal justice system, he spent two weeks- five days in the Police cell and another eight days as a prison inmate in Nigeria.
It is the third time in the last six years that Soyombo will receive nominations for his works. In 2014 and 2016, he was also nominated for the award.
Commenting on the reason for declaring Soyombo as the winner of the award, the judges, comprising Tina Rosenberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist; Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor; Jeremy Bown, BBC’s Middle East editor; Lindsey Hilsum, international editor of Channel 4 News; Peter Maass, senior editor at The Intercept; and The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson — cited the journalist’s “vivid and compelling three-part series” which brought to public knowledge “the everyday corruption and abuses of Nigeria’s criminal justice system”
In recent time, Soyombo has also investigated the operation of one of Nigeria’s most popular psychiatric hospitals. He, after an undercover investigation, where he feigned mental health challenges, revealed the corrupt practices of officials of the hospital.
On winning the award, Soyombo said; “The motivation for reporting on corruption and injustice, and putting myself at risk, is that I want a better society. I want a society that works for all”.