Nigeria’s journalism profession is facing an uncomfortable question that can no longer be avoided: why are social media activists increasingly asking the questions that crime and security journalists should be asking?
The controversy involving social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), and Assistant Inspector-General of Police Jimoh Moshood over the Ajiran murder investigation has exposed a troubling gap between the traditional media’s watchdog responsibility and the increasingly aggressive role being played by social media personalities.
But the controversy has also exposed something else: deep divisions within the crime-reporting community itself.
Rather than journalists collectively pursuing documents, court records, police directives, witness accounts and other evidence to establish what happened, the dispute has increasingly produced opposing camps among journalists—some perceived as sympathetic to the police officer and others determined to scrutinise the police account.
That raises an uncomfortable question:
When journalists begin fighting one another over the credibility of a powerful police officer, are they still investigating the story—or have they become part of the story?
The Ajiran controversy
VDM has publicly levelled serious allegations against AIG Jimoh concerning the handling of investigations into the killings of Sheriff Ishola Salami and Prince Ademola Akinloye.
Jimoh has rejected the allegations and maintained that the investigation was professionally conducted and based on directives from the Inspector-General of Police.
Police authorities have also maintained that the matter is subject to due process.
This analysis is not about deciding whether VDM or AIG Jimoh is right.
It is about asking whether Nigerian journalism has done enough to independently establish the facts.
And that question has become even more important following court proceedings concerning Ahmed Tajudeen.
Court intervenes over Tajudeen
According to a report published by TheNewsDay.ng on August 11, 2026, a Lagos High Court presided over by Justice O.L. Alebiosu ordered AIG Jimoh Moshood Oluhundare and the Nigeria Police Force to publicly apologise to Ahmed Tajudeen.
The report states that the court ordered the police to retract the declaration of Tajudeen as “wanted” and to withdraw documents portraying him in that manner.
It further reported that the court restrained the police from tagging Tajudeen as a criminal suspect in connection with the murder investigations involving Sheriff Salami and Prince Ademola Akinloye.
The publication characterised the police’s public treatment of Tajudeen as amounting to media trial and said the court’s decision vindicated an earlier NewsDay.ng analysis concerning the controversy.
The significance of the development goes beyond the dispute between one publication and the police.
It raises a fundamental question about the responsibility of journalists when police authorities publicly identify an individual as wanted or as a criminal suspect.
A police statement is an allegation.
An arrest is not a conviction.
An investigation is not a judicial finding.
And a press conference is not a courtroom.
Journalists should know the difference.
When an earlier media position is vindicated by a court
The NewsDay.ng report is also significant because it illustrates the tension that can arise when journalists take opposing positions on a developing controversy.
The publication claimed that its earlier analysis questioning the handling of the Ajiran investigation had subsequently been supported by the court’s intervention.
Whether one agrees with the publication’s interpretation or not, the development illustrates an important principle:
Journalism should be judged by evidence, not by which journalist has the strongest relationship with the subject of a story.
If a journalist publishes a critical report about a police officer, other journalists should not automatically attack the journalist.
They should examine the evidence.
If another journalist publishes a defence of the police officer, colleagues should not automatically attack that journalist either.
They should examine the evidence.
That is how a healthy journalism profession should operate.
Unfortunately, the VDM–Jimoh controversy appears to have exposed something different.
When crime reporters begin fighting over the AIG
The most troubling dimension of the controversy is the apparent division among journalists covering the police.
There are crime reporters who have cultivated close relationships with senior police officers over many years.
Some receive privileged access.
Some obtain exclusive information.
Some are invited to police functions.
Some publicise police achievements extensively.
And, in some cases, journalists may also undertake public-relations or media-related assignments for principals they cover.
Again, having a professional relationship with a source is not automatically unethical.
Crime reporting depends on sources.
The problem begins when access becomes loyalty and professional association becomes a conflict of interest.
If a journalist is personally or professionally close to a police officer at the centre of a controversy, the public is entitled to ask whether that relationship could influence the journalist’s coverage.
That does not mean the journalist is necessarily dishonest.
It means the relationship should not become invisible when the journalist begins defending the person.
When journalists fight journalists
This is where the VDM controversy becomes particularly revealing.
Instead of journalists asking:
Where is the petition?
Where is the IGP directive?
What evidence existed before the arrests?
What did the court order?
What did witnesses say?
What does the case file contain?
What does the defence say?
What happened to the suspects?
What happened to Ahmed Tajudeen?
Why did the court order the police to retract his “wanted” designation?
The profession can become distracted by another set of questions:
Which journalist is supporting Jimoh?
Which journalist is supporting VDM?
Who is closer to the AIG?
Who gets access to the police hierarchy?
Who is writing for whom?
That is a dangerous direction for journalism.
A journalist’s professional allegiance should not be determined by which principal provides access, assignments or personal benefits.
The PR relationship problem
This is not an argument against journalists undertaking legitimate public-relations work.
The problem arises when a journalist’s PR relationship with a principal overlaps with his or her responsibility to independently report on that principal.
Imagine a crime reporter who covers an AIG, regularly praises the officer, obtains exclusive access from the officer and also performs media or PR work connected to that officer.
When allegations subsequently emerge against the officer, the public is entitled to ask:
Can the reporter investigate the officer with the same independence as a journalist who has no such relationship?
The answer may be yes.
But the journalist must demonstrate it through the quality of the reporting.
The evidence—not the relationship—must determine the story.
The danger of journalists becoming principals’ defenders
There is a major difference between:
covering a police officer
and
working for a police officer.
The first is journalism.
The second is public relations.
Both may be legitimate professional activities.
But when the two roles overlap without transparency, the public can no longer easily distinguish journalism from reputation management.
That is where the watchdog role becomes compromised.
A journalist can praise AIG Jimoh.
A journalist can defend him against what the journalist considers false allegations.
But the same journalist must also be prepared to investigate him if credible evidence raises legitimate questions.
That is the standard.
The court order makes the question more important
The Tajudeen ruling makes this issue even more significant.
If a court has indeed ordered the police to retract the public declaration of Tajudeen as “wanted” and apologise, journalists should not simply celebrate the development or use it as ammunition against rival journalists.
They should investigate what led to the order.
What was the original police declaration?
What evidence was relied upon?
What legal challenge did Tajudeen bring?
What exactly did the court find?
What orders were made?
Were they complied with?
What does this mean for the police’s handling of the wider Ajiran investigation?
Those questions are more important than who wins the argument on social media.
When journalists applaud instead of investigate
There is nothing wrong with recognising exceptional police work.
A police officer who rescues hostages, dismantles criminal gangs, recovers weapons or brings murder suspects to justice deserves commendation.
But recognition should never cancel scrutiny.
The problem begins when a crime reporter becomes so closely associated with a police officer that criticism of the officer is treated as an attack on the reporter’s own professional interests.
Then journalism becomes tribal.
A reporter defends “his” police officer.
Another reporter defends “his” source.
Another attacks the first reporter.
Another publishes a counter-story.
And the actual investigation disappears beneath the rivalry.
Access journalism
Police correspondents depend heavily on police sources.
A commissioner, AIG, police spokesperson or senior officer can provide exclusive information, breaking news, crime statistics, access to suspects and details of investigations.
That access is valuable.
But it can also become addictive.
The uncomfortable question becomes:
“If I investigate this officer today, will I still get access tomorrow?”
Once a journalist begins thinking that way, independence is already under pressure.
Social media activists are filling the vacuum
This is where VDM’s emergence becomes important.
The issue is not whether VDM is a journalist.
He is not automatically an investigative journalist simply because he publishes allegations.
Virality is not verification.
A large following is not evidence.
A dramatic video is not a forensic report.
But activists have discovered something traditional journalism sometimes forgets:
people want someone to ask uncomfortable questions.
When journalists do not ask them, somebody else will.
When journalists reproduce police statements without independent verification, activists will challenge them.
When journalists celebrate police officers without examining their records, activists will ask what the journalists are not asking.
Sometimes the activist will be wrong.
Sometimes the journalist will be wrong.
That is why the answer cannot be social-media activism replacing journalism.
The answer must be better journalism.
VDM should not become Nigeria’s unofficial investigator
The answer is not to turn VDM into Nigeria’s unofficial police investigator.
He should be held to the same standard of evidence as everybody else.
If he makes an allegation, he should substantiate it.
If the police produce documents, journalists should verify them.
If the documents contradict VDM, journalists should report that.
If independent evidence contradicts the police account, journalists should report that too.
The objective is not to determine who wins a social-media argument.
The objective is to discover what happened.
The Ajiran investigation should have been a major investigative journalism project
The VDM–Jimoh controversy should have triggered a collaborative investigative effort by crime reporters.
One journalist could obtain the original petition.
Another could examine the IGP directive.
Another could obtain court documents.
Another could interview the victims’ families.
Another could examine forensic evidence.
Another could speak with lawyers.
Another could reconstruct the chronology of arrests.
Another could examine statements allegedly obtained from suspects.
Another could investigate the allegations against the police.
Editors could then compare the evidence and publish what could be independently established.
Instead, if journalists are fighting over which side to support, the profession has missed an enormous opportunity.
The real question about journalism’s loyalty
The journalist’s principal should be the truth.
The journalist’s client should be the public interest.
The journalist’s strongest professional relationship should be with the evidence.
Not with a police officer.
Not with a politician.
Not with a businessman.
Not with an activist.
Not with another journalist.
And certainly not with a patron.
This does not mean journalists cannot have friends in the police.
They can.
It does not mean journalists cannot praise police officers.
They can.
It does not mean journalists cannot undertake legitimate PR assignments.
They can.
But when those relationships collide with the journalist’s responsibility to scrutinise power, the public interest must win.
The danger of factional journalism
The most worrying possibility is that Nigerian journalism could evolve into competing factions built around powerful principals.
One group becomes identified with one police officer.
Another becomes identified with another.
One reporter becomes the defender of a commissioner.
Another becomes the defender of an activist.
Another becomes the defender of a politician.
At that point, the journalist is no longer merely reporting the conflict.
The journalist has become a participant in it.
And when journalists begin attacking one another because of their positions on powerful individuals, the public begins to wonder whether the argument is really about journalism—or about access, influence and personal interests.
That perception alone can destroy trust.
The victims deserve better
The Ajiran case must ultimately be about the people who lost their lives.
The families deserve justice.
The accused deserve due process.
The police deserve to have their evidence tested.
And the public deserves confidence that investigations are conducted lawfully and professionally.
The court will determine criminal responsibility.
Journalism has a different responsibility.
It must investigate the circumstances without prejudging the outcome.
It must scrutinise police claims without automatically assuming they are false.
It must scrutinise activists without automatically assuming they are truthful.
And it must scrutinise journalists themselves.
The uncomfortable conclusion
The most disturbing development is not that a social-media activist is asking questions about a murder investigation.
It is that Nigerians increasingly appear to believe a social-media activist must ask those questions because professional journalists will not.
That should worry every newsroom.
A crime correspondent should not become a police public-relations officer.
A security reporter should not become an unofficial defender of his favourite police principal.
A journalist should not attack a colleague merely because that colleague is asking uncomfortable questions about a powerful official.
And journalists should not fight journalists over who gets the favour, access or PR work of the same official they are supposed to scrutinise.
The media can praise the police.
It can recognise good police work.
It can defend an officer against demonstrably false accusations.
But it must never surrender the right to investigate the very people it praises.
The Tajudeen court orders, as reported by TheNewsDay.ng, provide an important reminder of what can happen when police publicity becomes subject to judicial scrutiny.
The VDM controversy provides another reminder: when traditional journalism leaves an accountability vacuum, social media personalities will occupy it.
The solution is not for journalists to fight VDM.
The solution is not for journalists to form camps around AIG Jimoh.
And the solution is not for journalists to fight one another over their respective relationships with powerful principals.
The solution is journalism.
Investigate.
Verify.
Question everyone.
Follow the documents.
Follow the evidence.
And let the facts—not friendships, access, PR relationships or professional rivalries—determine the story.
Because the most important question arising from the VDM–AIG Jimoh–Ajiran controversy is ultimately not:
“Should Nigerians believe VeryDarkMan?”
Nor:
“Should Nigerians believe AIG Jimoh?”
It is:
“Why did it take a social-media activist to ask questions that crime journalists should have been asking—and why has asking those questions apparently become a source of conflict among the journalists themselves?”
That is the question the Nigerian journalism profession must answer.
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