Climate accountability correspondent Ed Davey revealed a damning government failure to clean up a vast, tropical landscape in Nigeria destroyed by sloppy oil production and oil pilfering.
Davey was tipped off to hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to be spent to clean up vast pollution in the Niger delta were yielding nothing. Sources he had been developing for months leaked him documents that allowed him to make strong statements about rising concern behind the scenes at the U.N. that Nigerian officials were squandering cleanup money.
The documents showed U.N. and Nigerian officials were being thwarted as they tried to clean up the cleanup process itself. Ed went far beyond the documents, obtaining coordinates for oil spills where fake cleanups had occurred. He dug out the names of contractors who got major cleanup contracts even though they had no relevant experience.
When the documents spoke of laboratories that did not even possess the equipment to perform the soil tests they claimed, Ed tracked down a frequently used lab in the U.K. and it admitted that its results did not meet standards. Ed spoke with the U.K. authority in charge of certifying laboratories and found out that that lab had been suspended.
Ed was aggressive in finding people and documents to back up the allegations of off-the-record sources, and persuaded the former environment minister of Nigeria to speak with him.
For his relentless investigative reporting to uncover how authorities ‘failed completely’ to clean up oil damage despite funding, Davey earns Best of the AP — First Winner.
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