Fisayo Soyombo

Fisayo Soyombo (born October 27), is a Nigerian investigative journalist and founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). He was a former editor at The Cable. He is best known, among other things, for being the Nigerian undercover journalist who spent five days in a police cell as a suspect and eight as an inmate in Ikoyi Prison — to track corruption in Nigeria's criminal justice system, after which the authorities contemplated arresting him. He was also the journalist who drove the equivalent of a stolen vehicle from Abuja to Lagos, passing through a whopping 86 checkpoints in a journey of over 1,600 km that lasted a cumulative 28hours 17minutes.

Early life and education Soyombo, a native of Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, was born in Abeokuta, the capital of the state, where he studied at Lawson's Childcare Nursery and Primary School, Labso Nursery and Primary School, and African Church Grammar School, Ita-Iyalode, Owu.

He spent a year at the Federal University of Agriculture, Alabata, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) in 2003, before proceeding to the University of Ibadan in 2004 to study agriculture, eventually graduating with a B. Agric. in Animal Science.

Career In his first year at the University of Ibadan, Soyombo became active in the campus press, joining both Mellanby Hall Press organization (MHPO) and the Union of Campus Journalists (UCJ). The UCJ was then led by Kola Tubosun as president. After winning five awards — two from UCJ, two from Mellamby Hall Press and one from Indy Hall Press, one of MHPO's biggest rivals — he was selected by the UCJ to intern at The Guardian, a Nigerian newspaper, at the end of the session.

At The Guardian, he was placed on the Sunday desk under the editorship of Jahman Anikulapo, with whom he would later develop a mentee-mentor relationship. In recent years, Soyombo has publicly cited Anikulapo several times as the first of his two mentors and "probably the biggest influence on my journalism career".

Soyombo had two more internship spells with The Guardian – in 2006 and 2009 – and also underwent his national youth service, for which he credits Mr. Anikulapo and Mr. Martins Oloja, the then Abuja bureau chief, with the paper.

At the end of the one-year service in February 2011 and with no permanent employment available at The Guardian, Soyombo very reluctantly left the paper for Content Watch, a pro-local content oil and gas magazine founded by Taijo Wonukabe, led by Taiwo Obe. From Content Watch, Soyombo moved to Jobmag, a human resource magazine briefly published by The JobMag Centre, and from there he joined The Will, from where he joined the defunct Flair Nigeria.

In April 2014, he joined The Cable, initially arriving as the founding news and feature editor before earning promotion within a month to become the founding editor. After leaving The Cable in January 2017, he joined the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) as the editor, from where he joined Sahara Reporters as managing editor between May 2018 and June 2019. Although The Cable announced at its launch that it would be "strong in business and politics", Soyombo introduced investigative reporting to the platform, beginning with his December 2015 investigation into corruption at Nigeria's biggest seaport.

TheCable (April 2014 – January 2017) Soyombo started as TheCable ]

Controversy On Thursday, June 18, 2020, Soyombo wrote on his verified Twitter account @fisayosoyombo that former Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, had died. However, Ajimobi's family quickly debunked the claim, stating that the former governor was still on life support. Soyombo came under fire for refusing to recant tweets, instead he tweeted an update that his "trusted source insists the former governor is gone even though he still has not been disconnected from life support".

Awards and recognition In 2009, he made the longlist of the World Bank Annual Global Youth Essay Contest. In April 2022, Soyombo was named as a 2022 Fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom where he will undertake research on "the rise of a willing army against the truth — the practice of drowning out a genuine work of journalism with coordinated media campaigns that confuse unsuspecting members of the public, consequently leaving the authenticity of the story in tatters".