PREMIUM TIMES’ Head of Investigation, Taiwo-Hassan Adebayo, and seven others were honoured for their works at the 17th award ceremony of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) in Lagos on Friday.

Annually, the centre honours and celebrates investigative journalists across the six geopolitical zones in the country who use exemplary investigative stories to hold people in governance to account, expose ills and amplify the voice of the most vulnerable people in Nigeria.

At the 2022 edition of the award, thirteen finalists were picked from 179 entries reviewed by the judges out of 218 entries received by the centre this year.

Mr Adebayo emerged winner of the online category and the Nigerian Investigative Reporter of the Year with his Pandora Papers series, which unmasked the hidden owners of offshore companies, secret bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions and artworks among others.

During the award presentation ceremony which came under the theme “In-depth media and democratic governance” the judges noted that the journalists who made the list for the awards, have in the course of their duties shown uncommon innovation and profundity, ethical journalistic courage, individual creativity and public benefit in their reports on clandestine activities, public or corporate corruption, human rights violation and the failure of regulatory agencies.

“Most of the stories show that we are just ‘sloganeering’ as a nation, on ‘Change…