By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The audience of the BBC pitched the Sex for Grades idea, says freelance journalist, Kiki Mordi, in defence of allegation that she annexed the documentary of her colleague, Oge Obi.
The BBC’s Sex for Grade documentary centered on sexual transactions for grades on Nigerian and Ghanaian campuses.
Although there were no direct evidence in the documentary to support the title – sex for grades – it however showed unethical sexual conducts of the lecturers.
Sex for Grades has won several awards and brought fame to the face and voice of the documentary narrator, Kiki Mordi, who only recently received the Michael Elliott Award for African Storytelling.
But while Kiki Mordi is being celebrated for the Sex for Grade documentary, the role Oge Obi played in disguising as a 17-year old admission seeker, is believed to be the crux of the documentary.
She got a lecturer, Boniface Igbeneghu, to compromise with the supposed 17-year-old in some ways a more than 50-year-old would ordinarily not do with a child young enough to be his daughter. Although some have argued that Igbeneghu was set up to fall, and that without his falling, the documentary would not have succeeded. He has since been sacked by the university.
Oge Obi argued that the documentary was her brainchild and that Kiki Mordi was only allowed to do the narration.
Obi called Kiki Mordi a talentless fluke, claiming that whatever Mordi is or has achieved so far is because she stole her idea and made it hers.
But in a Twitter thread, Kiki Mordi said the idea behind the documentary was proposed online by audience of the BBC.
“The biggest question everyone has been asking is ‘who pitched the story?’ And while I’m just a freelance investigative journalist, I can tell you who for free because the answer is online….You guys did,” she said.
But Kiki Mordi’s explanation might be difficult to accept here, because in pitching a story, somebody has to define and take responsibility for the project. The BBC audience can only make suggestions, not pitch the story.
But Kiki Mordi continued: “After the last Africa Eye Project, the most comments BBC received was that the next investigation be on sexual harassment. I said this on Twitter, in my interviews, on the actual film. I never hid this from anyone & I certainly never stole anyone’s story or credits.
“When I came on board, I didn’t even know I was going to end up being the reporter and lead investigator. I was just happy to help. This story is personal to me. I was happy to play my small part. I didn’t hustle or apply or pitch or beg for this position,” she said.
In the documentary, Kiki Mordi played the role of narrator for the documentary. She also played the role of checking out the ‘Cold Room,’ the getaway of lecturers in the University of Lagos. The idea was to prove that lecturers compromise grades in the Cold Room. That part was not also proven in the documentary.
