The International Centre of Investigative Reporting, with support from the MacArthur Foundation, has completed its two-day workshop and experience-sharing event on procurement fraud with 20 Nigerian journalists.
The journalists who were fellows in the previous cohorts of the Open Contract Reporting Project (OCRP) were drawn from Kano, Sokoto, Abuja, Borno, Cross River, Jigawa, Enugu, Anambra, Osun, Rivers, Bauchi, Lagos and Akwa Ibom, across print, electronic and digital media.
The OCRP is a three-year project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation under its “On-Nigeria Anti-corruption Programme”.
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The Centre’s accountability reporting project promotes fiscal transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s budget and procurement processes.
In the last seven years, the Centre has worked to build journalists’ capacity to investigate and report effectively on budget and procurement issues, thus strengthening open contracting processes and engendering effective service delivery for the welfare of citizens, particularly at the subregional level.
The ICIR trains and provides grants for trained journalists to undertake impact, data-driven, evidence-based reporting on procurement fraud.
The ICIR has trained over 250 journalists in different newsrooms in Nigeria and published more than 300 investigative reports holding power to account.
The Centre spoke with some fellows, Bawas Khadijat Bawas from KAMED TV and Simon Ekimini Enobong, who works with Ripples Nigeria, Enugu at the just-concluded training.
They applauded MacArthur’s Foundation for the initiative through The ICIR for launching them into investigative reporting, which they said had had a significant impact on their career and communities by holding leaders to account.
At the workshop, the Executive Director of The ICIR, Dayo Aiyetan, outlined past investigations and the impacts of the fellowship on procurement and accountability reporting.
He encouraged the fellows to conduct due diligence with evidence-based reporting in producing their work.
Addressing the fellows, the Country Director of Macarthur Foundation, Kole Shettima, emphasised the need for the media to be the watchdog of society by writing compelling and impactful stories which hold leaders accountable.
At the OCRP experience-sharing workshop, a trainer, Yetunde Mosunmola, gave a presentation titled, “Investigating Procurement Fraud: Case Studies One and Two.”
Her session embraced a peer learning approach, drawing insights from stories produced by one of the journalists aimed at dispelling misconceptions surrounding investigations into procurement fraud.
The Executive Director of The ICIR took the fellows on “The Investigative Process: From Start to Finish.”
He explained how journalists could deal with sources, source map their stories, maintain anonymity, engage in evidence-based reporting, navigate challenging sources, and understand the nuanced distinctions between investigative journalism and other forms of reporting.
Mojeed Musikilu, Editor in Chief of Premium Times, took the cohort on “Writing for Impact”, which emphasised the importance of concise writing, effective multimedia utilisation, integrating human narratives with data, iterative rewriting, meticulous fact-checking, crafting compelling beginnings and endings, and steering clear of common pitfalls in impactful journalism and beneficial ownership.
In addressing procurement fraud in Nigeria, Damilola Ojetunde, a data journalist, conducted a session titled “Telling Stories with Data One: Navigating Procurement Data Sources.”
His session explored techniques for enhancing journalists’ proficiency in data analysis, identifying requisite data types, integrating data into their narratives, locating reliable data sources, and turning data into stories.