For most of the last decade, the conventional wisdom about whistleblowing in Nigeria has been straightforward. The 2016 federal whistleblower policy launched with cash rewards and good intentions, and then it ran into the same problem that has sunk every accountability initiative in the country. The people who blew the whistle got fired. Some were harassed. A few were prosecuted. Reports declined sharply afterwards. The cash didn’t matter. The risk did.
WhistleBlowNG, a secure reporting platform that has been operating in Nigeria for some time and is now publicly disclosing the scale of its legal coalition, is built on the opposite premise. There is no cash reward. There is, however, a coalition of young lawyers working at eleven of the country’s most prestigious law firms who have committed to defending verified whistleblowers pro-bono. These lawyers work for leading law firms such as Aluko & Oyebode, Templars, Banwo & Ighodalo, Olaniwun Ajayi, Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, AELEX, G. Elias, Jackson Etti & Edu, SPA Ajibade, Detail Commercial Solicitors, and Odujinrin & Adefulu.
Among people working in the Nigerian accountability sector, no one we spoke to could recall a larger, sustained pro bono legal commitment of this kind.
The platform itself is technically straightforward. Reports are submitted through an encrypted channel that does not ask for a name, does not collect an IP address, and does not store contact information. A verified report is routed...
New York announced a $4.5 million settlement on Friday with a travel booking company and three of its affiliates following a tax fraud investigation initiated by a whistleblower under the state’s ...