#HumAngleAt5: Five Iconic Investigations That Defined the Last Five Years

As HumAngle celebrates five years of fearless and investigative journalism, we look at some of our most impactful stories that have shaped the narrative of Nigeria and beyond. From exposing corruption and human rights abuses to shedding light on under-reported issues, our investigations have sparked conversations in the last five years, inspired change, and held those in power accountable.

In this special report, we highlight five iconic stories that show HumAngle’s commitment to investigative and accountability journalism. These stories represent some of the best of our reporting, with each one demonstrating our dedication to fact-based storytelling, passion for justice, and willingness to shed light on under-reported issues. 

An escape from the heart of terror

In a multiple series published in 2022, HumAngle detailed the ordeal of Jummai Inuwa, a humanitarian worker, who recounts her harrowing 18-month captivity by terrorists from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). She was abducted on Oct. 19, 2020, while travelling from Maiduguri to Biu in northeastern Nigeria. 

Jummai, a Christian, failed to recite the Islamic article of faith when it was demanded by the terrorists, leading to her capture. During her days in captivity, she met other female captives. After months of planning, Jummai orchestrated a daring escape on April 17, 2022, amidst a military operation against ISWAP. 

The humanitarian worker explained to HumAngle how she, along with five other women, escaped from captivity by fleeing through Lake Chad. They navigated the water and mud, avoiding detection by ISWAP fighters and eventually finding their way to a military base.

The impact of Jummai’s experience is profound. Her experience highlighted the challenges faced by survivors of terrorism as the exclusive story underscored the resilience and determination of Jummai and the other women who escaped with her. Despite the dangers and uncertainties, they worked together and used their skills and knowledge to survive and escape.

The investigation sheds light on the complex and often overlooked experiences of survivors of terrorism and the need for greater support and understanding for those who have been affected by violence and trauma.

Into the Abyss

Our investigative team delved into the complex and often hidden world of Nigeria’s conflicts in a quest for truth and transparency. One of the iconic reports in the last five years is “Into The Abyss Of Deaths, Burials, And Missing People In Nigeria’s War On Terror”. 

Published in September 2023, the investigation into the Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria revealed a shocking pattern of extrajudicial killings, mass graves, and military abuses. Following a year-long project we executed at HumAngle, which the Open Society Foundations funded, we looked at cases of people going missing due to the insurgency and tried to gather independent data that could point to the scale of this problem while also humanising the numbers and telling the stories of those affected. 

“Nigeria isn’t the only country in Africa facing protracted armed violence affecting millions of people, but the number of missing people documented in the country constitutes between a third and half of the statistics across Africa, according to information from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). So, I started asking questions and had to travel to Borno state thrice to gather evidence for the report—spending 10 months on the project until the report finally saw the light of day,” said Kunle Adebajo, who led the groundbreaking investigations at the time. Until November 2024, Adebajo, was the Investigations Editor at HumAngle. 

During our investigation, we gathered evidence from multiple sources, including documents from the Borno State Specialist Hospital, eyewitness accounts, and geospatial analysis. Our findings pointed to the Nigerian Army’s complicity in depositing lifeless bodies from Giwa Barracks, one of the largest military detention facilities in the country.

“I spoke to sources who witnessed extrajudicial killings, people who saw piles of corpses, people who were involved in burying the corpses, and people whose families were arrested and had not heard from them since,” Adebajo added. “Many of those stories were some of the most graphic I had come across in my years of reporting the conflict. It was shocking that they were just only coming to light.”

In our relentless pursuit of truth, we tried to deploy technological devices to scan for buried bodies, but our efforts were met with a frustrating dead-end. Undeterred, we pivoted to a bold new approach: leveraging the power of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). This innovative strategy allowed us to gather important data from publicly available sources and then use these to corroborate our suspicions.

“This feat could not have been achieved without the genius and dedication of HumAngle’s GIS/OSINT specialist, Mansir Muhammed. His expertise proved instrumental in helping us unearth the shocking truth,” Adebajo explained.

After our publication, detainees at Giwa Barracks were allowed to contact their families after nearly a decade. Some families have also been allowed to visit their loved ones in detention, and the prosecution of terrorism suspects resumed after a long delay. The report was republished and amplified by at least ten other media platforms. It also received three international recognitions in 2024. 

“It was longlisted for the One World Media Awards and the Livingston Journalism Awards. It was also one of the winning entries for the prestigious SIGMA Data Journalism Awards—a rare win for a newsroom based in Africa,” Adebajo added.

Sex and human trafficking series

Aside from armed violence, we have also investigated critical issues of sex and human trafficking. In 2023, HumAngle uncovered how organised sex trafficking networks in Nairobi, Kenya, target rural communities, preying on vulnerable girls.

A year after publishing that report, we received a tip about a trafficking ring luring Nigerians to Egypt under the guise of tourist visas. Upon arrival, victims were forced to work as housemaids in deplorable conditions, earning a stipend barely enough for survival. In our first report in the series, “How Traffickers Lure Nigerians Into Modern Slavery In Egypt”, we spoke with victims desperate to return home. However, their sponsors confiscated their passports and threatened to implicate them if they attempted to escape.

Our investigation sparked action. Following the publication, HumAngle formally alerted the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), highlighting the neglect of Nigerians trapped in Cairo. Within days, agency officials reached out for a meeting. We provided details of the victims and their families, enabling them to plan a rescue mission.

So far, two of the three victims we interviewed have been rescued and reunited with their families in Nigeria, thanks to NAPTIP’s collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). They also received financial assistance to help rebuild their lives.

“After HumAngle reported on our plights, I was contacted by the Nigerian Embassy in Cairo, and I went there to explain the situation to the Controller, who told me that my case was referred to them by NAPTIP,” Agbabiaka Bola, a Nigerian smuggled into Egypt by human traffickers in 2023, told HumAngle. “I was later referred to the representative of IOM. They got my seized passport from my sponsor and gave me a credit/gift card to feed myself for three months before I was eventually brought back to Nigeria on Aug. 29, 2024.”

At HumAngle, these moments remind us of the power of our work. We didn’t just tell a story; we brought attention to authorities to issues affecting abused people.

IPOB terror-financing

In October 2024, we probed the financial networks fueling the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) insurgency in southeastern Nigeria. The report, titled “The Internet Fundraising Marathons Behind IPOB’s Armed Struggle in Nigeria”, uncovered a sophisticated online fundraising network, leveraging virtual meetings and social media platforms to solicit donations from supporters worldwide.

“The idea for this report occurred to me in 2023. I had come across a video broadcast by Simon Ekpa where he asked his followers to donate money, so they could distribute palliatives to people affected by the sit-at-home order his faction of IPOB was imposing in southeastern Nigeria,” said Adebajo, who currently works at Code for Africa (CfA) as editor of the African Academy for Open Source Investigation (AAOSI). 

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to research the financial layer of the insurgency, especially how money is generated and what it is spent on?’ Then, I stumbled on videos of weekly Zoom meetings live-streamed by Ekpa’s group, where they raised money from members worldwide in real time. I reckoned this was a massive resource that could be turned into a data story and shed light on fresh angles to the crisis,” he added. 

Through meticulous data collection and analysis, we tracked the flow of funds from various countries and shed light on the tactics used to persuade donors. As the research for the investigation was gaining momentum, Adebajo received an opportunity to pitch a story to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Interestingly, the funding propelled the investigation to the next level, as the reporter travelled to Owerri, Imo State, in Nigeria’s South East, to conduct interviews with civilians and security sources, witnessing firsthand the devastating impact of IPOB’s fundraising on the region.

“It was difficult getting people to talk to me,” he recounted. However, he managed to speak with a woman whose police officer husband was killed by IPOB insurgents and interviewed frontline officers about their struggles. Witnessing the conflict firsthand—through obituaries, security adaptations, and the visible fear in people’s eyes—helped him capture the full gravity of the situation.

About a month after the investigation was published, the Finnish authorities arrested Simon Ekpa and other IPOB members on charges of inciting violence and financing terrorism.

‘Falmata was killed’

In November 2024, HumAngle also did a long-read investigative piece on Falmata, a 17-year-old girl gruesomely killed by her paternal uncle. The story titled: “A Tragic Femicide Case in Northeastern Nigeria Smells Like Honour Killing” underscored the vulnerability of women and girls to toxic patriarchy, maltreatment, abuses, and all forms of gender-based violence (GBV).  

Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu, HumAngle’s Managing Editor, who led the investigations and wrote the report, said she received a tip from community members about the devastating incident a few days after it happened in April last year.

The brutality of the case stunned her, and she knew she had to approach the story with sensitivity. However, the timing couldn’t have been more challenging. The community was still reeling from the shock, and Falmata’s mother was grappling with unimaginable grief. Months later, she embarked on a journey to Borno, determined to share Falmata’s story with the world. 

While Hauwa planned to meet Falmata’s mother, she did not show up. Despite the setback,  HumAngle remained committed to amplifying Falmata’s story, and we eventually found a way to tell her story, ensuring that her memory and the truth about her tragic fate would not be forgotten.

“It was just a tragic story that I also struggled with the decision of whether I was mentally and professionally ready to do. So, I let the story be for a while. But during that time, I was researching to understand all that transpired and the broader implications. When I went for a fellowship on trauma-informed journalism [at Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, Columbia Journalism School], a wide range of resources were available to me in terms of the facilitators and the materials. I remember that at the end of the fellowship, I wrote in my notes that I had resolved to go back to Bama and do Falmata’s story,” Hauwa recounted. 

Upon her return to Nigeria, and with the support of HumAngle’s management, she embarked on a determined quest to uncover the truth about Falmata’s story. However, she faced a daunting challenge: locating the victim’s mother without a phone number or name. After a painstaking search, she finally arrived at a house she believed belonged to Falmata’s family, prepared to conduct an interview.

As she sat down with one of the sources, however, she was struck by a startling realisation—it was not the story she had been searching for. Yet, the narrative that unfolded before her was equally haunting—another murder case that exposed the alarming frequency of such tragedies in the community.

“I had to continue my search for Falmata’s mother until I eventually found her. We did the interview, and it was such a heart-wrenching story. I came back and had to contact the police to find out why the accused was released,” Hauwa added. Though the response was not forthcoming at first, she began to make progress after the story was published, and there was a resulting outrage about it. Authorities reached out for more details to enable justice to be done. 

Like other impactful stories, Nigerian authorities have begun moves to re-arrest the man responsible for Falmata’s murder, and we have further exposed the systemic irregularity that led to his release in the first place.

These five iconic stories represent a few examples of our commitment to accountability journalism. As we celebrate five years of reporting, we remain dedicated to shedding light on the most pressing issues affecting Nigeria and beyond.