Daily Trust, the top publication of Media Trust Group; and Trust TV, one of its subsidiaries, stood high yesterday as their journalists won the Wole Soyinka Investigative Journalism Awards. Daily Trust and Trust TV journalists, Afeez Hanafi and Muslim Yusuf, emerged as the winners of both the print and television categories of the award — the most prestigious investigative journalism award in Nigeria.
Afeez Hanafi won the print category based on his story titled: ‘INVESTIGATION: Journalist secures 2 jobs with Oluwole certificates’.
The runner-up and third positions in the print category were Kingsley Jeremiah and Ann Godwin, both of The Guardian newspaper. But it was a repeated scenerio as no winner was announced for the radio category. Also, no one emerged as either the runner-up or third position.
In the online category, Theophilus Adeokun of National Record won overall with the story titled: ‘Dangote, in quest for cheap energy, pumps poison into Benue Rivers’.The runner-up was Kunle Adebajo from HumAngle, and Isah Ismaila from HumAngle finished third.
In the photo category, Elliot Ovadje of The Punch newspaper emerged as the overall winner, while Elliot Ovadje of the same Punch newspaper finished as the runner-up and third position. For the honourary awards, Justice Ayo Salami was given the Human Rights Defender Award, while renowned poet Odia Ofeimun received the Lifetime Award for Journalistic Excellence. Before the award presentation, the Chair of the 2025 Judges, Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika, in her speech titled: “The architect of accountability; a verdict of truth”, revealed that 180 entries were submitted but were screened down to 129. She highlighted elements of courage, depth, accuracy, impact and commitment to the public interest as the criteria used to score each entry.
“We did this individually and independently using certain criteria, and they centred on covering corruption, human right abuses, crime and clandestine activities and best practices in investigative journalism,” she said. She added that the existence of the award for two decades signalled a legacy of journalism and hope for the future of truth. Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, congratulated all the awardees, urging them not to rest on their oars.
“Some of the heroes for the survival of this nation will be found among the media. At the same time, however, I have to appeal to the media to be a lot more stringent, to have a greater scrutiny on what they put out. There’s too much misrepresentation,” he said and urged the print media to improve their reportage. He pointed out the rise of fake news and raised alarm about the flood of stories flooding the social media everyday.
