2021 WSAIR: Why media must defendthe civic space

THE annual Wole Soyinka Awards for Investigative Reporting (WSAIR) is designed by the organisers to  reward and celebrate media practitioners, in different genres of the profession. These practitioners must have distinguished themselves in the past year in the area of investigative jorunalism.

But, besides the reward activities,  this year’s edition, held recently, in Lagos, was also an opportunity for stakeholders in the practice to stress the need for the nation’s media to take up the role of stoutly defending the civic space.

For instance, in her remarks at the event, the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ),  Motunrayo Alaka, noted that the media, as first drafters of history,educator, watchdog and informer,  should lead in the defence of the civic space.

Defining the civic space as  the available ‘room’, where good governance is expected to be demanded, Alaka argued that despite being in a democracy, the space had, of late, being under siege.

She stated further that the decision of the Centre to come up with the Award was informed by the need to encourage more practitioners to play the role of defending the space, through a well-researched investigative job.

“Investigative reporters are at the heart of this dream of an open government. Hence the decision of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism to position investigative reporters, in collaboration with other stakeholders as defenders of the civic space.

“Those who attack the civic space are aware that to reduce the possibility of good governance, you must weaken the power of voice, its diversity and its amplification,” she stated.

Alaka explained that the award represents part of the Centre’s larger conversation to honour and increase visibility for those who defend the space, the investigative reporters and other advocates of good governance.

Commending the quality of the 220 entries,  received from Television, Radio, Online, Editorial Cartoon, Photo and Print, and the range of topics covered, the Chairman of the Award Jury, Ayo Obe, stated that assault on civic space, such as police brutality, repressive laws, extortion, executive lawlessness and even corruption, dominated the discourse of the reports submitted.

“Some of these reports were harrowing,” she added.

Obe also commended the winners for standing for the voiceless, while asking other media practitioners to always embark on course that would benefit humanity.

But some practitioners, at the event, however, believe that  defending the civic space is not without its consequences for such ‘defender’.

According to Olukunle Akinrinade, the 2021 WSCIJ Nigerian Investigative Reporter, it took him painstaking efforts, and months of ‘digging deep’ to unravel the mystery surronding the killings, carried out in some Ogun communities, by suspected herdsmen, which made residents of such communities flee to  the neighbouring Benin Republic.

He argued that, but for the support  he enjoyed from his organisation, the investigation would have been thwarted since there were pressures and denials from Ogun State government that there  were no such killings in those communities, despite glaring evidences confirming the incidents.

Another winner, Mary Abayomi-Fatile, believes it has become expedient for the nation’s media to look beyond the immediate pecuniary gains, rally round the downtrodden and give them the much-needed voice.

Narrating how her intervention saved an innocent Nigerian from being sent to prison on trumped-up charges, by the organisation he worked for, for daring to express his reservations on some of the company’s policies.

“Defending the civic space could be arduous, but it has its rewards in the smiles you put on the faces of those who would have been oppressed,” she added.

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