Kemi Busari
Emmanuel Ogala of Premium Times Nigeria was the cynosure of all eyes last week when he scooped the awards for Online and overall Investigative Reporter of the Year at the 10th award ceremony of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.
The experienced web developer who heads the Digital Strategy Unit of Premium Times won the overall award for the first time ahead of 11 other journalists from the print, online, radio, television, photo and editorial cartoon categories.
Emmanuel won the overall award with his entry titled; ‘investigation: Jonathan, Allison Madueke, Tunde Ayeni named in fraudulent oil contract that cost Nigeria millions’ published on the website on 16th September 2015.
Many at the award ceremony held at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos were amazed when his name was called for the overall award. His friends rushed forward to take pictures with him.
But how did Emmanuel, a product of the sciences come up with this story that shook the nation at the time of publication?
He told CSNews “I work more in the office but I go out sometimes to write stories because it is what I enjoy doing. The story came out of a conversation I had with a friend. He told me that NNPC was shipping crude from production unit to the refinery at a point when the refineries were not working. Form there I begin to ask myself the question of why the shipping when the refineries are not working? It was a guided secret but from there I began to dig and thank God I got some sources and handed documents. I took up to 5 months but we came out well.”
The achievement didn’t come without challenges. Emmanuel spoke about the prize he had to pay to get the work done.
“The first challenge was access to information because NNPC didn’t want to give information. At first it looked as if I was not going to get anything. I went there with an FOI to seek information but they didn’t honour it. They just kept posting me, telling me to give them more time. At a point they told me they didn’t have the information at all.
“Then my personal security was another challenge I had to take care of because publishing it didn’t go down well with them. I did the story about something that was not supposed to be known by anyone. I even had to go underground for some time.”
Urging them to be more patient, Emmaanuel enjoined Nigerian journalists to do more investigation and practice with integrity.
“You know journalism in Nigeria is not easy. But with endurance, patience and the zeal to keep doing what one knows best has kept us going. People will appreciate what you do and they’ll keep spurring you to do more. Let’s engage more in asking questions and give the public the truth always.”
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