Nigeria needs more professional business journalists —Olakoyenikan

Young Oluwasegun Olakoyenikan is a reporter on the Forbes’ Money and Markets Team covering Wall Street and everything investing in African frontier markets. In this interview with IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI, he spoke fact checking, business journalism and many other issues facing the journalism industry.

You’ve covered the business side of journalism for a while now across multiple platforms, how would you assess the prospects of the sector in relation to the challenges facing the country today?

That’s correct! I believe that business journalism has immense potential and will remain relevant for as long as the world exists. Let me quickly mention that the challenges confronting Nigeria are not peculiar to the country, but also affect many emerging economies around the world. One interesting fact is that the country’s economy is defying the challenges to grow at a decent rate, meaning more economic activities are going on. As the economy grows, so does the market for business journalists. We need more professional business journalists today than ever before, to provide people with reliable information that can drive more economic activities and help them live better lives. That’s what we call journalism that serves the public good. Business reporting has many links to various critical aspects of human life. We know this because we believe there is a business angle to every story; be it sports, healthcare, fashion or even politics. In fact, we call every day a business day. Investment deals are being agreed upon, billions of dollars of equities, bonds, and other assets are traded across various markets, and as governments continue to prioritise the welfare of their people, they are likely to keep making policies to drive economic prosperity. And even if they fail to make such policies, the public should know. On top of that, most people want to work, earn, and afford the basic needs of life. All these revolve around business.

 

You also had stints doing fact-checking. What was your experience like during the fact-checking fellowship you participated in?

It was a great experience. That was my first experience participating in a fact-checking fellowship, and I was one of only five journalists selected by Dubawa as pioneering fellows. It was back in 2019 when I was working as a financial journalist at BusinessDay newspaper, covering companies and markets and also contributing to a weekly investment guide called BDMoney. I became interested in fact-checking when I realised that some people were deliberately spreading wrong information on social media to drive the prices of stocks they already bought and wished to sell. By the time the fellowship started, I realised that I was in the programme with other exceptional journalists from leading dailies in  Nigeria. So, I decided to carve out a niche for myself at the intersection of business and fact-checking journalism by focusing on viral claims about the economy. That turned out to be a great idea because, at the time, fact-checking journalism in Nigeria was in the early stages, and many politicians were fond of using inaccurate macroeconomic statistics to exaggerate their performance in office. I tackled claims about the finances of Ondo, Ekiti and Bayelsa States, the purported evacuation of trucks from Apapa roads, Nigeria’s debts from 2006, poverty population, among others. We made some achievements, and that’s part of the reason why some key Nigerian politicians are aware of the work we do and are now mindful of the accuracy of their statements. Remember during the governorship debate for the 2022 election in Osun State, Governor Ademola Adeleke emphatically said “fact check” after speaking about the violence that followed the previously inconclusive election, which he later lost in 2018. That speaks volumes of the impact of our work, such that influential public figures call for an independent verification of their comments.

 

Based on your experience, how would you assess the level of disinformation in the political and economic space in Nigeria?

You know Nigeria is a very unique country, especially in the areas of cultural diversity, tribal affiliations, religious differences, and strong political awareness. All these play into the quality of conversations we have both across online platforms and traditional media. It tends to get worse during general elections and in times of crisis because hard times make people more likely to seek alternative sources of hope. We saw a flood of disinformation during the #ENDSARS protest of 2020, so also the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and military coups in neighbouring countries. Yes, we are not where we want to be as a country, but we have certainly made significant progress from where we were. Like I said earlier, the interesting thing is that there is a growing consciousness that you can’t make a false claim and not be challenged. That awareness is a direct result of the years of dedication and hard work invested by the fact-checking community in Nigeria to combat the spread of false and harmful information. The end goal is for us to create a culture of accuracy in our society, and this can easily be achieved when the public is equipped with the right skills to spot and tackle false claims themselves. So, journalists like myself and fact-checking organisations at the forefront of building this much-needed capability deserve some credit.

 

In late 2020, you authored a fact check that found as false a fake statement from “the EU Human Rights Forum” praising the government’s swift rescue efforts that led to the release of hundreds of abducted schoolboys. How did that come about?

I came across the claim on X (formerly Twitter). It was posted by Bashir Ahmad, the personal assistant on new media to the then President Muhamadu Buhari. Just from glancing at the name of the so-called forum and the individual mentioned in the press statement, I knew something was off. I didn’t consider it a claim worth investigating until I got to the part of the statement I considered to be political propaganda. The supposed EU Human Rights Forum compared the unfortunate kidnapping incident to the 2014 abduction of 276 girls in Chibok. It implied that if former President Goodluck Jonathan had responded quickly, the girls would have been found early. Then I realised it was propaganda created for political reasons and strategically distributed to major media to amplify. I relied on the global influence of the Agence-France Presse (AFP) news agency, which was the company I worked for at the time, to get the European Union involved in the investigation. The organisations that published the statement as a news story were also very helpful in establishing the intent behind the disinformation and that the forum was non-existent.

 

At the point of carrying out the check, didn’t you feel you were taking on the high echelon in the country bearing in mind the love-hate relationship that exists between the government, security agencies and the media in Nigeria?

Absolutely! Nobody likes to be exposed, especially people who are interested in ingraining a particular false narrative. It reminds me of a quote I like so much, which says “journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.” So, I was not bothered; I was only doing my job. The core principle of journalism is to hold the government and every state-funded institution accountable. They are answerable to the people who voted them into power and whose taxes they receive as salaries. At all times, the public interest will always supersede anybody’s personal goals.

 

You went on from the Nigerian media space into the global space. How did you prepare for this transition?

It’s a combination of hard work and commitment. I have been a journalist since the early 2000s when I was in secondary school. We had a press club through which we reported stories about our fellow students and school events, but I had no idea I was going to pursue journalism as a career until I started working as a citizen journalist. Back in 2014, I would use my reports to raise awareness about health issues confronting people in remote communities that are out of reach to mainstream media. When I saw how the government responded to some of our stories, I felt so powerful and decided to become a professional. Since then, I have taken advanced media training at some of the best schools here in Nigeria, including the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ).

In 2015, I won a $15,000 scholarship award to take the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA) Financial Journalism programme at Lagos Business School. The course was timely and transitioned me fully into business and financial journalism when I graduated in 2016. All these programmes prepared me for everything I achieved thereafter.

 

What are the culture shocks you observed when you compare journalism outside Nigeria to the ones obtainable in the media space here?

I wouldn’t label it culture shock, but call it differences in both climes. As a democratic nation, I believe Nigeria still has significant progress to make in terms of upholding freedom of expression and the public’s right to access information. I believe we need more constitutional protection for journalists, media organisations, and even the public. It’s unfortunate that we continue to witness cases of threats, harassment, and sometimes physical attacks against journalists who are working hard to keep the public informed. Not that these issues are entirely absent in countries such as the UK and the United States, but they hardly go unchecked due to laws and strong institutions already in place to effectively address the situation.

 

How then did you settle in?

It was quite easy for me because, for most of my career, I worked in different capacities with journalists from various countries across the globe. During my time at AFP, I had the opportunity to work closely with fellow journalists at the global wire service on cross-border stories. For instance, during the pandemic when a lot of young people in Nigeria were interested in using mobile applications to invest in stock markets around the world, a similar trend was observed in India and France. So, I teamed up with journalists from these countries to produce a wire story focusing on how this trend was particularly common among Generation Z investors. I have also created a couple of digital investigation training videos. Most of these projects take time; from idea conception to final execution. You obviously can’t do all these without close interactions with your team members. These experiences make it easy for me to fit in into any setting and get along with people quickly. I also realised that when you bring so much experience and skills to the table, it makes you more confident and stand out wherever you find yourself.

 

Would you say there are enough opportunities for young journalists and media professionals in Africa to develop themselves the right way?

Location is not a barrier to accessing many opportunities. The world is already a global village and you can take advantage of media capacity-building opportunities in different parts of the world, thanks to the power of the internet. As a journalist resident in Nigeria, I received many employment and scholarship offers from various organisations outside the country. In fact, for every award or major recognition I received, there were invitations from prominent media companies in Africa to join their teams. So, I believe there are enough opportunities for aspiring journalists and seasoned professionals seeking to upskill and establish a global presence. But that doesn’t mean all opportunities can be accessible online; in some cases, we still need human interaction.

 

Kindly tell us more about yourself.

I’m a seasoned reporter, with a speciality in the intersection of business and fact-checking journalism. I built my skills portfolio from a combination of hands-on experience in the field as a journalist and rigorous training from some of the best schools in the world. I hold a master’s degree from the University of Benin and earned a second master’s from New York University, where I studied at the Carter Institute of Journalism and the Stern School of Business. I acquired my business and investigative journalism skills under the mentorship of industry-leading editors, including Pulitzer prize winners.

I’m currently working for Forbes in the United States, where I conduct wealth valuations and financial investigations on the world’s wealthiest people for the annual billionaires list. My goal is to carry out more impactful reporting and give back to the media community by sharing the knowledge and skills I acquired throughout my career.

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