₦airaland Forum

^
Too many [b]blind[/b]sided folks in these parts. If not for and his Saharareporters, we will be at the mercy of Tribune "investigashiooon" journalists 

^^
The looters of Nigeria hate him. We don't expect less from them, awon enemies of development.

Omoyele Sowore I'm proud of you jare. . .keep on pushing.



". . .we are building it to the point where it will be useless to fight us.”  -Sowore

Yes. .One day. . . the power will shift. . lagbara 'eledua

[size=17pt]From Safety of New York, Reporting on Distant Home[/size]
Published: November 19, 2011


WHEN news breaks in Nigeria, Omoyele Sowore is there.

His Web news operation was the first to publish a photo of the Nigeria-born “underwear bomber” arrested in December 2009, and when a suicide bombing this summer shook a United Nations building in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, he was the first to publish on-the-ground reports and photos. During the presidential election in Nigeria in April, he published real-time photos, videos and reports from the field, exposing instances of ballot rigging, and attracting over eight million page views in one month.



Mr. Sowore, 40, is not based in Abuja, Lagos or anywhere nearby, but in a cluttered seventh-floor office on a gritty stretch of West 29th Street in Manhattan. Armed with a laptop and a server, he has established his Web site, Sahara Reporters, as a major player in the Nigerian press, despite being 5,000 miles away.

And he is only one of a growing number of New York-based journalists in exile taking advantage of cheap and easy Web-publishing technology, and the growing access in the developing world to the Web, to report with impunity from afar.

A recent report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization devoted to promoting press freedom, counted at least 649 journalists from around the world forced into exile over the past decade, with 91 percent unable to return home, and only 22 percent able to work in their profession. These include reporters from dictatorships like Cuba, but also from places like Russia and Mexico — democracies where working as a truth-seeking reporter can be a dangerous proposition.

In Nigeria, “now that we have, so to speak, democracy, you would expect the media to be more vibrant, but the opposite is the case,” Mr. Sowore said in an interview.

“It is not so much a problem of freedom of speech,” he said, “but freedom after speech. You can say a lot of things in Nigeria, but the question is: Will you still be a free person? Will you still be alive after you freely express yourself?”

MR. SOWORE grew up in a small village on the Niger River Delta, where, he said, corrupt government officials reaped the benefits of the region’s oil-rich land while doing little to improve the lives of its impoverished residents. That experience impelled him to become a leader of antigovernment activists while a student at the University of Lagos, a position that he said resulted in his being harassed, abducted and ultimately tortured at the hands of the pro-government police.

In 1999, he attended a peace conference at American University in Washington. Fellow activists recommended he seek help in the United States for the psychological aftereffects of torture, and one colleague put him in touch with the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, an initiative that helps victims rebuild their physical and mental health. He had planned to go back to Nigeria, but doctors advised, for his mental health, against an immediate return. Instead, he sought political asylum in the United States and enrolled as a graduate student in public administration at Columbia University. Frustrated by his distance from his homeland, he soon realized that his re-entry into Nigerian political activism could come online.

“I have always been a lover of the media,” Mr. Sowore said, reminiscing about a comparatively robust news landscape when a military junta led Nigeria from 1983 to 1998. “These guys then were really daring. They would publish what they wanted, and weren’t afraid of the military. The newspapers just refused to allow themselves to be proscribed.”

IN 2004, Mr. Sowore and Jonathan Elendu, a fellow Nigerian exile based in Michigan, created an online publication called Elendu Reports. Mostly, they focused on the questionable activities abroad of Nigerian politicians, publishing photographs of extravagant houses and luxury car collections allegedly bought with the spoils of corruption, and following paper trails to offshore accounts.

Back home, their exposés ignited widespread outrage. The domestic press may have been too intimidated to report on the rampant corruption, but by publishing the articles online from a base here, Mr. Sowore and Mr. Elendu were free of government-sponsored violence.

Meanwhile, rapidly spreading Internet access in Nigeria — the World Bank estimates Nigeria had nearly 44 million Internet users in 2009, up from fewer than one million in 2003 — helped them reach enough people that officials had no choice but to address the ensuing uproar. In several cases, the articles led to the arrests of prominent politicians.

“It just got bigger and bigger as we went along,” Mr. Sowore said. “People back in Nigeria thought we had some sort of wizardry, always finding these stories, but we were just following the money, and no one was able to stop us.”

Mr. Sowore said he had a falling out with Mr. Elendu in 2006. (Mr. Elendu could not be reached for comment.) Mr. Elendu continued with his site, but Mr. Sowore soon started Sahara Reporters, named less for geography than to symbolize his desire to “kick up a storm across Nigeria,” from the basement of his home in Englewood, N.J. Using a network of contacts in the United States and in Nigeria, he continued to report on corruption but also expanded into breaking news.

Soon, reporters based in Lagos began to send him controversial dispatches that their own editors refused to print. Mr. Sowore is happy to publish them, shielding the reporters’ names when necessary for their protection.



“Our reporters have a layer of protection they can’t have in Nigeria, where the police can arrest you and harass you,” Mr. Sowore said. “They can’t bomb our offices. They can’t get the police to shut us down.”


In 2008, with financial support from the Ford Foundation and the Global Information Network, an independent, nonprofit organization focused on news from the developing world, Mr. Sowore moved his operation to Manhattan, although he also works from his home, his car, coffee shops or wherever he happens to be when a story breaks across the Atlantic. His workday often begins at midnight New York time, when Nigeria wakes up and he starts getting tips by phone and e-mail.

IN contrast to Mr. Sowore, “most journalists are unable to contribute from exile,” said Lonnie Isabel, director of the International Reporting Program at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.

“It’s an enormously difficult transition,” he said. “There are language skills to learn, new technologies to deal with and many other barriers.”

To bolster the in absentia press corps, Mr. Isabel helped found CUNY’s International Journalist in Residence Program, a joint initiative with the Committee to Protect Journalists that gives one international reporter each year full access to the journalism school’s resources.

The school’s 2010 resident was Sonali Samarasinghe, a Sri Lankan journalist whose husband, also a journalist and an outspoken critic of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was assassinated in 2009. Ms. Samarasinghe immediately fled after she received death threats.

Classes in digital technology and entrepreneurial journalism helped her prepare for the recent start of her own Web site, Lanka Standard. In its first three months, it had 65,000 visitors, she said, many of them from within Sri Lanka.

CUNY’s newest journalist in residence is Agnes Taile, 31, a reporter from Cameroon who spent several years writing about corruption and human rights abuses in the northern region of her country before death threats and run-ins with the police led her to leave in 2009. This year she began Le Septentrion Info, a French-language Web site dedicated to news from that under-covered region. She hopes to soon expand the site and add an English version.

Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, another alumnus of the CUNY program, worked for 10 years as a reporter and editor in Iran and was among the first journalists there to blog. In 2004 he was arrested and held in solitary confinement for two months, until he agreed to write a public confession saying he was a spy. In 2006 he left the country, ultimately landing in Brooklyn.

Mr. Mirebrahimi’s site, Iran dar Jahan (Iran in the World), features some original reporting, but its primary mission is to translate international news reports about Iran into Persian, so that Iranian readers can get a sense of what the world press has to say about their country. Iran had 28 million Web users as of 2009, according to the World Bank, the most in the Middle East. And while the government blocks access to Iran dar Jahan, many Iranians are adept at using proxy servers to gain access to banned sites. Mr. Mirebrahimi, who was sentenced in absentia by an Iranian court to two years in prison and 84 lashes, said his site had about 70,000 visitors a month.

“It would be impossible to do this kind of work inside Iran,” he said. “New York has been a great place to work from, because there are so many resources here and because the community is so welcoming to immigrants from all over the world.”

Of course, the ultimate dream for each of these far-flung publishers is to set off enough political change back home that exiles like themselves will one day be safe to return.

“I certainly hope to be publishing Sahara Reporters in Nigeria someday,” Mr. Sowore said. “Part of what we are doing now is fighting for a space to be able to do this legitimately, building it to the point where it will be useless to fight us.”

Abdul Ningi, whoever that is, spoke my mind.

You can't fight cartel and you were running and dancing up and down in April struggling to become president.

It's not by force, you can resign if the job is too hard nah

Hahahaha Sagamite won't let them rest.

Hmm

moroh:
What?

Why are you surprised. Have you seen Gowon's clueless face before. Very typical dumb look.

Anyway here's evidence of his stupidity.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-582533.32.html

meonbooty:
Yakubu Gowon was right.


I think, Blazay's life is worth more than yours.

Oniyeye 

Blazay will just wound you with her Booobies. .

Awon iya mi niyen.

Na dem hold Nigeria tight. Everybodi for don join Boko haram out of frustration and hunger.

Well done ma'ams

"The worth of the life of a child born and bred in Kano cannot be compared to that of a child born and bred in the United States" -Yakubu Gowon ( fighting for Pfizer against his own people)  

Dem nor probe allegations of corrupt Oil lifting and bribery against madam. .with all the video evidences by 234next.


But dem wan probe Heute mansion allegations.

Na only foreign media allegations dey annoy una? They don't care about Nigerian media shey

Hehn. .Ok. .But. . . . Is it by force to be Presido?. . .he fit comot nah.

Nigerian presidency is an at will employment. .you fit resign anytime. . . . . Sir

Awon Oniyeye. . . They can't even count. .SMH

Awon Oniranu. . SMH

He was asked to wear gloves and search for narcotics in his own excreta. That is quite unacceptable. We are going to sue for damages.

As a country, the manner in which we treat our own people says a lot about our societal values.

No respect for human dignity. That is the thread running through most of these cases with Nigerian security services.

Absolutely no respect or regard for the humanity we all share.

rhymz:
I as well have always been vexed by the false sense of intelligence that our intellectually lazy journalist embelished that goon, IBB.

Only Nigerian journalists see intelligence in one being cunning, crafty and crude in their dealings with others. As far as showing capacity to understand Nigeria's problem is concerned, he failed woefully, dude lacks the ability to make the right decisions, his style is crude and his only easy route is being evasive which only exposes his lack of depth.

How the guy and geneius come begin share name baffle me sef. I ve watched many of his interviews on tv, the man is obviously not near intelligent let alone a genius whether evil or good. He is just crafty and evasive, period!!

Quoted for Truth. Well done!

Tunmi:
Ricky_Ross, okay so scammers dey everywhere. That one no be lie. But, we wan clean the one wey we get for Naija. If them Russians and Jamaicans and co no wan clean them, na their own palava be dat. But for us o, we don tire. And we wan do sometin about it. I know say Naija get better ting pass yahoo-yahoo, and we wan make the better ting show. Na im be dat.

Omoluabi with correct sense. How you dey?

^

You want to contact EFCC?     

Where have you been?

You've not heard that EFCC is under Yahoo Yahoo?? 

Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU21wuYlvxs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[quote author=ekt_bear link=topic=801609.msg9544078#msg9544078 date=1321154623]Poetry is something I've never quite "gotten" and have struggled to appreciate. But definitely I can feel what this dude wrote, lol.[/quote]You definitely got it. Part of its characteristics is the ability to move emotions.

I think the experts call it the highest form of writing.

I told Nagoma his ethnic baiting will be replied. Well he incurred Aribisala's poetic wrath

Sagamite:
Really?

Why not?

And our moorons in Nigeria tagged him Evil Genius.

Sagamite, walahi I cringe everytime I hear Nigerians use that phrase "Evil Genius"

Evil yes, Genius kini Who dash monkey banana?

We have enough geniuses in our History, IBB is not smarter than any prison guard or slave driver.

Geniuses lift their people up, not ruin them, they bring out uncommon solutions, not recycle retardded ones.

How can anyone look back at how Nigeria regressed between 1985 and 1993 and call that gap toothed Idiooot a genius?

How?

alj harem:
Kilode egbon

ok i suppose, but wishing he dies a violent death is still a bit too much in my opinion

Alhaji Agba, how body?

Well, it might be too much for some of us, but for mohammed, who personally witnessed his brutality, it's hard to fault his anger.

How the dye business now? I heard last season was good, happy belated Eid al-Adha. May Allah grant us Al-Janaah despite our shortcomings. Forgiveness is for the immortals.

I'll be disapponted if I see IBB in Al-Janaah tho 

@alhaji,

There is nothing uncultured about wishing death and pain on your enemies and the oppressors of your family.

I'll argue that it is high-culture sef.

Koran Supports it, Bible supports it, Sango supports it. I support it.

Almost every human culture support it.

cap28:
IBB deserves to be dragged through the streets of ajegunle and mushin while still breathing because he is solely responsible for the misery and suffering inflicted on the masses of nigeria therefore Gani's son is 100% spot on- why would any sane person have any sympathy for a monster like IBB, a man who murdered hundreds of people and subjected millions more to a life of unending misery and poverty? i want this bastard to live to see a revolution in nigeria, i want this piece of poo to be alive and well when he is abducted from his home in minna by a screaming lynch mob who will torture and degrade him until he dies a slow and agonising death.

I can't put it better than this.

IBB ruled Nigeria as a dictator for almost 9years. Lula transformed Brazil in less time and he was no dictator.

IBB is an unintelligent foool with zero vision beyond his nose.

Drunk:
So far, He makes no point or sense with whatever he has said here. Nobody deserves to die. If he had the mind of his father and right upbringing, he would seek for justice to be done on IBB and not wish him Dead, as far as i am concerned, he is just a sick dude talking.

The guy only expressed a personal wish, he's not chasing IBB around with AK47's

And you are wrong, some people deserve to die, and violently too: Murderers and looters of our commonwealth.

Also, justice can be delivered through violent death. E.g firing squad, lethal injection, electric chair. E.t.c

All those, are widely acceptable best practices methods of killing Criminals like IBB. Albeit after a judicial process, which I don't think Mohammed is opposed to. 

PStylish:
@OP,All
ones thats if they have ever heard of it. The reason Nigerians in diaspora like and flock to 

this forum is  that your immediate  environment is hostile and there is absence of

neighbourhoodliness which this forum provides for you guys.Most home based guys on NL like

myself came here for runs(business) and then got interested in the topics on the

frontpage.Infact, the person that told me about this forum is not a Nairalander.Most of the

guys who read and contribute to threads on this forum are not home based and the sex ratio of

this forum is say 7:1 in favour of guys with most of the ladies being foreign based

Shey una don hear am from "home based" Nigerian now? 

Stuffs you discuss and fight over on Nairaland are mostly back-to-sender. Few people read them in Naija

but of course Baba Achebe is faarr beyond the Childish antics of these clueless rogues in Government.

As usual, they can go keep their "award" waay up that place they kept their brain. Awon Asiwere!

honeric01:
Are you saying IBB won't get a state burial? do you want to bet? (especially a PDP man)

Honeric, Haba you can read better than this, my point is clear;

I'm saying, So What?? What if ignorant idiots and souless bootlickers praise him? Then?

It does not matter, Mohammed Fawehinmi's words are still right and well directed. Even dead Hitler has loyalists and many brutal dictators got state burials all over history. It does not negate this man's anger. He only expressed a personal wish.

State burial or not, IBB was an incompetent leader and a murderer, regardless of how many Mercedes eventually escort his dead body to the graveyard.

honeric01:
Dreamers, IBB go die and even get state burial, can we say the same for this dude?

Not everyone need a State Burial. People still rever Hitler and Abacha till today. So?

Even if Mohammed Fawehinmi die unsung and unknown, it won't remove one dot from the fact that IBB is a killer, an incompetent leader and was a coward oppressor of the Gani Fawehinmi family.

Dude is very well entitled to his bitterness and anger.

Edit.