Soyombo got on the longlist for getting himself trafficked to Burkina Faso to expose the luring of Nigerians to the landlocked West African country with the promise of dollar-paying jobs in companies that supposedly made gold, wristwatches and necklaces
By Sade Owoyemi
‘FISAYO Soyombo, founder/editor-in-chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), has been longlisted for the 2025 True Story Award.
Now in its fifth year, the award received 1,049 applications all over the world, from which a longlist of 36 has been made, with three to be awarded in three categories — research, storytelling and impact — at a ceremony in Bern, Switzerland in June 2025.
“The quality of the entries was extremely high, which naturally made the choice even more difficult this year than in previous years,” Fiona Leney, one of the jury, said in an announcement by the organisers on Sunday.
Former Africa correspondent Christoph Plate observed “many exciting entries from the African continent, especially those ones looking for solutions to the problems narrated.”
Soyombo got on the longlist for getting himself trafficked to Burkina Faso to expose the luring of Nigerians to the landlocked West African country with the promise of dollar-paying jobs in companies that supposedly made gold, wristwatches and necklaces.
The investigation has saved scores of Nigerians from falling victim to traffickers. Although the story was published back in August, feedback regarding its education of Nigerians about Burkina Faso traffickers continue to pour in, the latest only threeks ago.
The True Story Award longlist is the latest in Soyombo’s recognition-laden journalism career, following his emergence last year as a 2023=24 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, United States.
The former editor of TheCable, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and SaharaReporters emerged one of the winners of the Karpoor Chandra Kulish International Award for Excellence in Journalism 2021 — for his 2019 undercover investigation on the failings of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, for which he got himself detained at a police cell for five days before spending another eight in prison after he had been arraigned in court.
The same year, he was a finalist in One World Media’s International Journalist of the Year award, the second time in a row he had made the OWM shortlist, having been long-listed for the award in 2020 before going on to earn a place on the three-man shortlist.
Three months earlier, he had won the second prize in the Outstanding Investigation category of the Fetisov Journalism Award, described by organisers as “the most lucrative journalism award in history”.
In December 2020, Soyombo had also won the Local Reporter category of the 2020 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism. Before that feat, 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).
His 2016 honours include African Media Initiative awards, Maritime Economy category (winner); Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting, Online category (second runner-up); Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting, Online category (winner); Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting, the Nigerian Investigative Journalist of the Year, (winner); Diamond Award for Media Excellence (DAME), Investigative Reporter of the Year (runner-up); Free Press Awards, Hans Verploeg Newcomer of the Year category (winner); and the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Journalism Excellence Awards, Journalist of the Year, Business and Economy Reporting, (winner).
A three-time winner of the Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting, Soyombo founded FIJ in 2020 as an independent, not-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. The outfit started publishing on January 20, 2021.
For his efforts in investigative journalism, the Nigerian state considers him an enemy and has detained him twice this year, with a third expected to happen any moment from now.
- https://fij.ng/article/fijs-fisayo-soyombo-longlisted-for-global-journalism-award/
