An unknown Nigerian has opened a Facebook account dedicated to seeing “the end” of ‘Fisayo Soyombo, Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ).

The account was opened on December 14, 2021, with a profile picture that is the same as Soyombo’s verified Facebook account profile photo, and a blank-background cover photo with the inscription: “Dedicated to make fisayo soyomi [sic] pay for his act of wickedness.”

The user of the account then sent a friend request to Soyombo, which was ignored.

It wasn’t until the first week of January that Soyombo observed the account had also messaged him thus: Hello fisayo, I hope you see this, fisayo I want you to know that, you have committed an unforgiveable sin and you shall pay heavily for it, you go online write about people without confirming what you’ve heard or do your proper research before writing defamatory statement about them, well, you done this one , and this will be your last I assure you, I have been quiet for a while doing my research too, in life before taking some actions you have to consider if what you are doing won’t affect your family and your loved ones, I have done my research observing from afar, I know where you live, I know where you family stays, your dad, mum siblings, the consequences of your sin shall be taken on them, you shall cry bitterly knowing fully well it coz of your reckless, it is certain you shall pay heavily, both physically, legally and spiritually, one way you will definitely pay. I want you to aware so you can get ready, nothing is going to happen to you, but you shall cry over your loved ones, it will serve as a lesson to you that, in life sometimes our loved may suffer as a result of our actions and decision. This is not a threat, it just fact. So get ready to feel the pain you inflict on others.

The message was sent thrice, at 05:18am on December 14.

FIJ reached out to Facebook in an attempt to unravel the identity of the account user, but the feedback was that Facebook “cannot reveal user data”.

“Off the top of my head and based on how they reacted to stories about them that were published by FIJ, I have four or five suspects,” Soyombo said.

“But it’s not a problem. Things like this come with the terrain and they will have no negative impact on how FIJ conducts its work.”

FIJ has no record of publishing defamatory stories. In the only case so far where we got our facts wrong, we not only issued a corrigendum, we published a follow-up story restating the facts.