Our New Year Resolution Wasn’t To Avoid Problems But To Improve Their Quality
Friend,
At the beginning of 2023, during HumAngle’s first editorial meeting of the year, we agreed we would work towards encountering problems that were more sophisticated than the ones we encountered last year. Our New Year resolution was not to avoid problems, just to improve their quality. In so deciding, we were left with the responsibility of venturing into territories that were more daring than last year. It was the only way to guarantee beautiful setbacks.
We set out to experiment with forms and formats of storytelling and work to be more inclusive of our diverse audience through the introduction of some of our products in more languages.
In February, when the Nigerian presidential elections came around, our tasks were distributed across being on the field, staying back at the office to process the materials we were getting from the field, and representing the data and stories through ways that were as digestible and visual as possible. We did this through a tracker. The tracker consisted of a map with pointers that were colour-coded to show whether there was violence or electoral malpractice going on and where. When the governorship elections came in March, we documented it in the same way.
In May, we used OSINT to identify over 200 hamlets, villages, and towns in Nigeria’s Borno State that had been destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgency, attempting to visualise the effects of violence on geography and civilisation. We did that through text and an interactive map/database.
In July, our animated short movie The Displaced was released. It was a 20-minute film that sought to humanise the displacement problem in Nigeria’s northeastern region as a result of the insurgencies, how the mismanagement of IDP camps is resulting in real-life consequences for people, and sexual violence. It was a culmination of several episodes that had been released over the course of several months. In August, we released it in the Hausa language. The Displaced was made possible with support from the MacArthur Foundation.
Speaking of languages, we also began to roll out a monthly recap of news in the Francophone region in video format and French. Vous pouvez le regarder ici.
We did quite a number of investigations as well. In this one, we established that checkpoints set up on four routes in Borno were being used by security agents to milk drivers, generating at least NGN100 million yearly. We also represented our findings through an interactive database showing the routes, how many checkpoints there were, which security outfit was manning them, and just how much was being extorted there yearly. Thanks to this work, drivers reported to us that rather than extorting them, security officials at checkpoints were now warning them against giving bribes to them. More on the impact of this report here.
We also investigated a sex trafficking menace going on in Nairobi, Kenya. We spoke to victims, former members of a cartel, and NGOs working to provide help to victims. This was published today.
In Cameroon, we found that many internally displaced women and girls fleeing the crisis-hit regions were being systematically tricked into sex work by men positioned at various bus packs.
We also investigated the claim that Nigeria’s northeast accounts for 25,000 of the missing people in Africa. We found that many were victims of extrajudicial killings and clandestine mass burials by security forces. If you haven’t read it, you can do so here. You can also read the rest of our investigations here.
Our coverage of gender saw a rapid expansion. We covered the experiences of women and men around sexual violence, reproductive health, wartime extortion, and many more, from Nigeria to Cameroon to Sudan and to Kenya.
In terms of multimedia production, our YouTube channel will speak for itself. Remember to subscribe. We carried out several long-form documentaries and gave you bite-sized videos that were both digestible and analytical.
We also participated in several journalism conferences around the world. We were at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, in September, the Africa Facts Summit in Mauritius in October, the African Investigative Journalism Conference in South Africa in November, and the African Women in Media Conference in Kigali in November. Again, in November, we organised one of our own!
Friend, thank you for staying with us this year. If you are so moved, feel free to donate to our work here.
There is more exciting stuff coming. Here is a window into what you can expect to see from us next year.
Within the course of the next few days, we will be publishing our end-of-year roundups. Stay tuned for them!
Happy Holidays, my friend.
Managing Editor
HumAngle Media
PS: This article first went out in our newsletter. You can subscribe here.
