Michael Orodare: Conflict Reporting in a volatile, unstable, complex and ambiguous environment

On Thursday, July 22, 2021, I was one of the panellists at a two-day Capacity Building Workshop on Conflict Reporting for Journalists which took place in Abuja. The workshop was organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in partnership with the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ).

The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung is a German foundation sponsored by the German government. It promotes democracy, rule of law and a socially and environmentally responsible market economy in more than 120 countries.

For me, it was a great feeling not only because conflict reporting is a topic I’m particularly interested in, but also because I sat with other young journalists like Adekunle Adebajo of HumAngle, Ibrahim Adeyemi of Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), and Abdulaziz Abdulaziz of Daily Trust, to share our experience in conflict reporting.

Michael Orodare Neusroom — *From right; Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, Michael Orodare, Busola Ajibola, and Ibrahim Adeyemi share conflict reporting experience.*

My participation is based on my professional opinion and experience in conflict reporting especially from my recent reports on the murder of Dr Fatai Aborode in Igangan, Oyo State and the killing of a cobbler in Sasa market, Ibadan, Oyo State, which sparked ethnic violence that reverberated across the country and led to the death of many.

Although the panel session was short, I’ve decided to put my thoughts in this piece which I believe will serve as a good guide for journalists in reporting conflict.

The Locals are your first source

Like Dapo Olorunyomi, the publisher of Premium Times rightly said at the workshop, the first obligation of a journalist is to the truth. In Conflict reporting, the locals are the first source of information for journalists in our attempt to get to the root of the crisis and identify the truth. But from my experience, I have come to understand that locals also have interests they want to protect and they need access to a platform to push their agenda. We have to be careful so as not to be reporting their ‘agenda’ as the truth. Every local contact has an agenda, I have come to understand that from my recent visit to Igangan and Sasa in Oyo state.

Contacts will be all over you willing to do anything just to push their agenda as the truth because they believe you have the platform that could reach a larger audience and they also needed access to a platform to spread their agenda. Listen to them but use their accounts carefully and intelligently.

The moderator asked me why no other media organisation reported the perspective in my story about the killing of Dr Fatai Aborode which took a detour from the popular narrative that he was killed by herdsmen but his father claimed it was a political killing. Many have argued that the media report of the Igangan killing complicated the crisis and turned Sunday Igboho into who he is today.

My answer was, most media organisations have correspondents in the state capital, when there is a crisis in communities far away from the state capital, it is always difficult for the correspondents to travel down and get the story. Because they are also under pressure from their editors, they rely on local sources via phone calls, and sometimes their accounts may not be the true representation of events.

“It would be impossible for any journalist to get at the whole truth, but striving to verify, check and question is at the very heart of journalistic ethics,” Olorunyomi posits.

You can’t get all you need from one source

Harry Truman, former U.S President, said “You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.”

The same rule applies to journalists. You can never get all the facts from one source. You need to dig deeper, beyond your capability.

All the structures that makeup society must find their voices in the story. It must explore the crisis from the perspective of the old, young, women and men. This will help you identify if a source is trying to manipulate you.

Tell contacts to show you

As an undergraduate, one of my favourite lecturers always told us ‘Show, don’t tell’. This is a cardinal principle that should also guide journalists in conflict reporting. Try as much as possible to ask the source to show and not just tell you stories.

Before I went to Igangan in February 2021, I’d heard a lot of stories about the town and different narratives about the death of Dr Fatai Aborode. When I got there I asked them to show me the place he was killed and the farm he was coming from. My contacts warned me not to go to the scene because it’s not safe. They even told me all the journalists who have been to the town never visited the scene. They told me it’s about 45 minutes from the town but I insisted I wanted to see and not just hear stories if that’s the only thing I can achieve in the town. They had no option but to take me there upon my insistence. Going to the scene gave me another perspective different from the narrative some locals had given me and other journalists. At least I know that the farm is not a 40-minute drive as claimed by some locals. It was about a 25 minutes drive from the town. I wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t ask them to show.

Every conflict has a history. Find it.

Conflicts don’t just occur and blow up spontaneously, there’s always a history. Professor Olawale Albert who took the first training at the workshop called them root causes and identified lack of justice, non-equity, corruption of political leaders, poor governance as some of the root causes of conflict.

As a journalist, you need to understand the history of a conflict before diving into your report. This helps you play the role of peacebuilder and developmental journalist. And in doing that, you need to avoid stereotypes and all forms of biases.

Like I mentioned in my report on the crisis at the Sasa market in February 2021, pent-up anger from the increasing reports of alleged atrocities of persons described as Fulani herdsmen in southwest Nigeria and the government’s perceived docility (a product of non-equity) fuelled anger leading to the clash.

The death of Adeola Sakirudeen was only a trigger. It was an avoidable clash, yet sadly, it claimed many lives. Have some of these issues been addressed yet? No! We are just a little trigger away from another conflict.

Humanise victims, don’t exploit their loss

One thing that stands us out at Neusroom.com is how we treat victims, give them a voice and reward their heroics where necessary.

We always humanise victims of the conflict. We do not try to exploit the loss and suffering for traffic or revenue. This should be the hallmark guiding journalists. Don’t exploit the loss of victims in conflict.

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A classic example is the Sasa crisis, we spent hundreds of thousands of Naira on the report and also donated and crowdfunded over half a million naira for the victim. We did it because it matters and it was the right thing to do as a media platform, not for traffic and financial gains.

Use Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to get more insight and verify claims

Like I mentioned earlier, the number one challenge journalists face in conflict reporting is identifying the truth to avoid being manipulated by sources.

Those who are not patient enough to verify claims end up reporting the agenda of their sources, which may be a misrepresentation of the truth.

There are several OSINT platforms available to journalists to verify claims and fact check. Some of them include, Google and TinEye reverse image search to verify photos, Amnesty International YouTube DataViewer to verify if a video or parts of a video has been uploaded previously online, Wayback Machine to explore the history of a website and Facebook Search to verify and source for information.

Busola Ajibola, the Programme Manager of PTCIJ who moderated the session was about to ask me how the role of security agencies in the Igangan crisis further fuelled the crisis before the session was put to an abrupt end.

My answer: the Police acted too late. It is worthy to note that there was no arrest made and no interrogation in the killing of Aborode until February 2021, about three months after the incident. The prime suspect who witnessed the killing was not invited for questioning until the Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde intervened.

The workshop did raise some very interesting observations. Some of them centred around who should be responsible for giving terrorists their proper names without trying to be politically correct? Does conflict reporting worsen the crisis? What should journalists do when the State does not want them to report conflict? Why journalists need to apply self-censorship in reporting conflict.

I don’t have the answers, but I’m convinced journalists have an important role to play in volatile environments like Nigeria; in young, struggling democracies; and in countries where issues of tribe, religion, class and income are as complicated as Nigeria. And I plan to play my part.