Fisayo Soyombo: The Journalist Who Goes Undercover to Expose Nigeria’s Hidden Truths

Fisayo Soyombo: The Journalist Who Goes Undercover to Expose Nigeria’s Hidden Truths

There are journalists who report from the scene, and there are journalists who enter the story. Fisayo Soyombo belongs to the second category.

For more than a decade, the Nigerian investigative journalist has built a reputation around a simple but dangerous proposition: if a system hides its truth behind closed doors, a journalist may sometimes have to walk through those doors himself.

As founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Soyombo has investigated corruption, abuse, trafficking, criminal justice and institutional failure. His methods have repeatedly taken him beyond conventional reporting—from spending days inside a police cell and Ikoyi Prison to going undercover in a psychiatric hospital and penetrating an orphanage investigated over alleged baby trafficking. (’Fisayo Soyombo)

But in 2026, Soyombo embarked on what may be his most audacious undercover operation yet. For 47 days, he travelled from Kano through some of the most dangerous migration corridors in West Africa and North Africa, passing through Zinder, Agadez and Dirkou in Niger before entering Libya and continuing towards Tripoli and the Mediterranean route. His mission was not to make the journey as a tourist or observer. He travelled undercover as a migrant to document what happens to Africans who attempt the perilous journey to Europe. (TheCable)

The resulting three-part investigation, published by FIJ in September, described a world of hunger, violence, exploitation, forced labour, robbery and modern-day slavery. The risks were immediate. During the journey, armed men stopped the convoy and seized his satellite-tracking device. Elsewhere, bandits confronted the travellers. Migrants were packed into vehicles designed for far fewer passengers, while some were reportedly forced to work without pay. Soyombo also documented allegations of sexual violence and other abuses along the route. (Egungwu Chukwuka)

He had been warned that abduction was a real possibility. In an interview after the investigation, Soyombo said he had been told there was roughly a 30 percent possibility that he could be abducted in Libya. Yet he went. (QED Nigeria)

That decision captures the contradiction at the heart of Soyombo’s journalism. The very dangers that might persuade another reporter to stay at a distance are often the reason he believes the story must be pursued.

His career has already produced extraordinary examples of this philosophy. He once drove what was presented as a stolen vehicle across more than 1,600 kilometres and 86 checkpoints to investigate corruption. He spent time inside Nigeria’s criminal justice system as an undercover suspect and inmate. He has travelled undercover as a trafficked person and investigated criminal networks from within. (’Fisayo Soyombo)

Soyombo’s journalism is therefore less about watching Nigeria’s hidden worlds than entering them. That makes his work compelling and dangerous. In an era when public trust in institutions is increasingly contested, his reporting offers an old-fashioned journalistic promise: go closer, ask harder questions and bring back evidence.

In 2026, he went farther than most reporters would dare. And from the Sahara to the Mediterranean, Fisayo Soyombo once again turned himself from observer into participant so that Nigerians could see what happens where the cameras normally do not.

Fawumi Kayode Abiodun
Political Analyst | CEO, Ekocity Media | Publisher, Ekocity Magazine and The Capitol Post