Foundation For Investigative Journalism (FIJ), an independent not-for-profit newsroom marks its second year anniversary today, with highlights of its impact-oriented journalism fighting social injustice and financial crimes among others.
The investigative platform was founded by a Nigerian celebrated undercover journalist, Fisayo Soyombo in 2020.
In an exclusive report published by FIJ earlier today, the platform says it has helped Nigerians recover a total sum of N46.9 million in two years of its existence.
In 2020, FIJ says it recovered N16,668,674 while covering financial-related crimes totalling. Between 2021, 2022 and January 2023, the figure rose to N30,292,361.
Of FIJ’s biggest fund recoveries in 2022, the platform had recovered the sum of N2, 000,000 after Kwara policemen attached to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) accosted one James Karunwi, a forex trader, and his friends in Ilorin, forcing him to transfer N2 million to a Point of Sale (PoS) merchant from whom they collected cash.
Also, in October, one Adewale Mustapha, an FCT-based visual designer, recalled how he received debit alerts of over N2 million from his United Bank for Africa (UBA) account for a Sportybet transaction he never initiated. Two weeks later, the money was refunded following FIJ’s report.
On July 28, 2020, one Jerome Madunezim, an Access Bank customer, made a $7,451 transaction using his Access Bank Visa card and was debited the naira equivalent of N900,000 and another N200,000, totaling N1.1 million. Surprisingly, he was, in addition, left with a -N2.2million balance.
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Jerome got a lawyer who wrote a series of letters to Access Bank to demand a reconciliation of the account, but the bank did not respond. He went ahead to sue them, but they didn’t show up at the court. This went on for two years. However, 12 days after FIJ published the story, Access Bank chalked the N2.2m off.
The platform, since it was established in 2020 has investigated a series of issues in the country.
