Fisayo Soyombo: Hunting The Journalist Who Is Hunting Corruption -By Promise Eze

One patriotic citizen risked his life to track, excavate and expose the stenchy corpse of corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system but no sooner than his findings made it into the precinct of the media did reports claim that the cabals involved in the criminal justice system went hunting and planning to apprehend this journalist who exposed corruption. The actions of the authorities calcifies my belief that perhaps even the individuals responsible for administering justice need to be brought to justice.

Fisayo Soyombo is one man that has evinced his love and admiration for his father land by placing his freedom on a thin line so as to combat corruption . The power of one man intoxicated with the determination to incite a positive change cannot be overemphasized. Fredrick Nwabufo, SaharaReporters opinion writer, scribbling along this line, put succinctly in one of his articles that, “One man can induce rippling change in a system. One man can stop illegal detention, arrests, and govern the impulse to clamp down on free speech and citizens’ rights. One man can rebuild relationships and cause harmony to exist among disparate peoples.” One man has chosen to reveal the hidden acts of darkness and that one man is on the run for his dear life. What then is the incentive for speaking the truth is a country that supposedly claims to ensure and guarantee freedom of speech?

It becomes mind boggling and very worrying that instead of investigating the police over alleged abuse of their prosecutorial powers, the authorities irked by the report of this passionate journalist went hay wire and is keen on throwing this truth talker into the gulag. What shall we say is Fisayo’s crime? Exposing corruption? Isn’t it stipulated in the national anthem that every Nigerian should endeavour and strive to “serve Nigeria with all my heart “? Shouldn’t this journalist be venerated and appreciated for choosing to go extra miles in performing a great service to the nation?

The Nigerian police cannot deny that its officers have time without number carried out extra judicial killings, extortion, and have harassed innocent Nigerians. Reports has shown that some bad eggs in the system are prone to be trigger happy when confronted by Nigerians who would not agree to pay bribes as low as fifty naira. The Nigerian correction service cannot refute the fact that some of its officials are the ones who need to be corrected judging by the sort of atrocities they exude. Everyone knows the system is rotten but to what extent? The young journalist, charged and thrown into prison for a laughable offense was not only able to show Nigerians how policemen pervert the course of justice in their unquenchable thirst for ill gotten money but also revealed the psychological, emotional trauma and horror prisoners pass through, the rot in the system, the death of Justice in Nigeria. We wouldn’t have known that as long as a prisoner is donned with wealth he can live large even within prison walls. We wouldn’t have known that funds meant for the correction service were diverted to be used by private individuals for an incorrect use. Well-meaning Nigerians were disappointed when news wafted round that the brave journalist spoke from his forced self-imposed exile that concerning hiding. Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief that at last something positive will be done regarding the delaying justice system when the investigations were published online but their heavings metamorphosed into sighings when the man hunting corruption became the hunted.

Fisayo Soyombo who placed himself in dangerous circumstances should not be in a self imposed exile for exposing the truth. In other climes, the authorities do not turn a blind eye to the truth. In Ghana, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, a high profile undercover journalist waddled his feet in the same matter. His investigations led to the arrest and detainment of several judges who were caught on camera selling justice for some few tokens, for sex, for kinds, for gifts as weird as goats. If Nigeria is truly the giant of Africa, then she should be ready to do more than what the government of Ghana has done.

Young Nigerians following the trend on social media must be disappointed by now. They must have gleaned the fact that fighting corruption in their father land only lead to more trouble. They must have gleaned that it is OK to bury corruption beneath the ground of silence, it is safer to see corruption and turn a blind eye, it is normal for the correction service to be in a serious need of correct practices. What a brand of future generation Nigeria is breeding!

There is no single document that declares that journalists should risk their lives for the truth. If one man, one journalist, one Nigerian, agrees to uphold the sanctity of his country then I see no reason why that man should scamper into oblivion after speaking up.

The president, Lagos State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Dr. Rotimi Akinreti’s statement on the issue is worth telling. “Why would they want to arrest him? Let them look into the system and clean it up. It portrays Nigeria in a bad image. The only way is to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of horrendous and disgraceful service in the police and prisons. People have been alleging these ills, and Soyombo took a step further by doing a good report. The inspector-general should commend him for doing a good job,” he said.

The Nigerian authorities should hunt corruption and not the one who exposes it.

Promise Eze, a campus journalist, writes at ezep645@gmail.com and be reached through 08103911686