Dotun Olawoye

In 2015, I got my first experience as an intern with Sahara Reporters immediately after my secondary school. Here, my thoughts and worldview were shaped, I found answers to the questions I have always asked while growing up and since then, I have not looked back.

I realized that government inefficiency has inhibited development in my country and I made the firm decision to become an astute journalist, capable of doing reports that will hold government and public officials accountable to the people.

During my internship, I immersed myself in the intricacies of journalism, learning from the best and acquiring competence in several areas of the profession. After my internship, the impeccable work that I have done stood me out of the other interns. I was retained and elevated to the position of a multimedia journalist. I became the first employee without a tertiary education to achieve that feat at Sahara Reporters.

As a multimedia journalist, I have done several reports and documentaries that chronicle issues in line with Sahara Reporters focus on anti-corruption, transparency and promoting good governance.

In 2020, I went back to my secondary school to revisit the lack of amenities I had encountered years ago. I did a report which captured how students sit on the bare floor, learning in classrooms with leaky roofs despite a £2.7m state education budget. This report led to a massive renovation in the school.

After this, I joined Tiger Eye Foundation as a multimedia producer for #MySARSStory; a project documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform. Here we have been releasing horrifying stories of torture, kidnapping, and deaths that myself and other journalists from across Nigeria have discovered.