Soyombo, TheCable editor, claims top prize at PwC awards

TheCable was the cynosure of all eyes at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Media Excellence Awards on Friday night, as it accounted for three of the 11 finalists recognised at the inaugural edition of the award.

The business and economy reporting, which the judges described as the “most competitive” because it attracted 29 entries, was won by ‘Fisayo Soyombo, editor of TheCable, for his story: ‘Undercover Investigation: Nigeria’s Customs of Corruption, Bribery and Forgery’.

Emmanuel Ogunsola of Techpoint NG and Isaac Anyaogu of BusinessDay were the two finalists.

Taiwo Oyedele, tax partner and head, tax and regulatory services, PwC West Africa, singled out Soyombo’s piece for being “an excellent work of journalism” and urged the audience to “get the article and read it”.

PwC — a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 223,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services — rewarded category winners with N500,000 and finalists with consolation prizes of N50, 000 each.

TheCable’s Mayowa Tijani was a finalist for the SME reporting category, but it was won by Eromo Egbejule of Ventures Africa, with his story: ‘Walk in these shoes: Aba’s very own leather manufacturing plant’. Hannah Ojo of TheNation was the other finalist.

Tijani was also a finalist for the tax category, but it was won by Anthony Matuluko of Tax Matters on TV — the only other finalist — for his interview with secondary school students at the SWIT seminar.

Tijani, TheCable’s business reporter, who incidentally is a graduate of Food Technology from the University of Ibadan, could not attend the ceremony, as he is in the United States covering the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Washington.

Stanley Opara of Punch, Collins Nwaeze of TheNation and Abiodun Eromosele of THISDAY were the finalists in the capital market category. Eromosele won the first prize with his article, ‘Of The Exchange Rate and Devaluation’.

A total of 55 entries were submitted by journalists in four categories: tax reporting, capital market reporting, SME reporting and business and economy Reporting.

Sixteen entries were received for SME reporting, eight for capital market and only two for tax.

Soyombo’s PwC award comes three months after he emerged — for the second time in three years — one of eight journalists from around the world short-listed for the 2016 Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards in International Journalism. However, the award will be received on October 27 by Pakistani journalist Umer Ali.

Soyombo was short-listed in the Local reporter category, for his three stories of 2015: the undercover investigation into corruption at Apapa ports, a feature on the practice of female genital mutilation in some parts of Nigeria, and a three-part investigation into Liberia’s post-Ebola recovery.

TheCable’s Soyombo was first short-listed for the award in 2014, for ‘Blood on the Plateau’ — a five-part investigative series on the ethnocentric killings in Plateau state, published in December 2013.

That year’s finalists were chosen from “almost 300 stories entered by 93 journalists from 41 countries”. The award eventually went to Indian journalist Neha Dixit.

Soyombo, a 2013 recipient of the Deutsche Welle/Orange Magazine Global Fellowship for Young Journalists, contributes opinions to UAE-headquartered Al Jazeera and Germany-based TAZ.

A finalist for the 2015 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist from the Developing World FPA Award, his works have been translated into French, German and Arabic.