Typing in ‘Remi Balogun’ brought up a short Wikipedia entry, along with a bunch of photos and video clips from his newsreading prime. Things got more interesting when Julius added Adebisi to the search.

The first article in the result was from the Lagos Times and had been written by Remi six years earlier. It was a lengthy and well-researched exposé, describing how a London-based company had bought sixteen million pounds’ worth of vaccines and medicines from Indian pharmaceutical companies, then resold them to the Ondo State healthcare system for more than forty million. Twenty-four million profit had been stolen from Ondo State’s meagre public health budget, and while the article made no specific allegations for fear of being sued, Remi clearly thought the Adebisi family was behind the Lithuanian shell company that scooped the profits.

As Julius scrolled more search results, he found articles by Remi linking his mother’s illegal imports to the collapse of Nigerian textile manufacture and the Adebisi family to multiple scandals. These ranged from a contract to build two gas power stations, that cost over 70 billion naira but were never completed, a soccer stadium that went eight times over the original budget, to a colossal deal with the Chinese Development Bank that involved pre-selling a quarter of Ondo State’s oil production for the next thirty years, in return for a vast loan that had been used to fund the governor’s mansion, and dozens of other projects from which Adebisi-owned companies stood to profit.

Julius had grown up hearing that corruption was part of the Nigerian way and that it was so ingrained in society that you had to go along with it to have any chance of success. But if what Remi had written was true, his mother and uncle had made all the money they could ever need but kept stealing anyway.

The opening line from one of Remi’s blog posts clawed at Julius’s conscience: In Ondo Province, the lights stay out and one child in three goes hungry, but a new survey of wealth in Africa shows the Adebisi family are now worth half a billion US dollars …

Julius also noticed that Remi’s criticism of his family and other corrupt members of Nigeria’s elite had coincided with a plunge in his status. In ten years, Remi had gone from famous newsreader, to a journalist whose articles were published by prestigious newspapers, to a guy whose most recent articles only appeared on his own anti-corruption blog.

Julius heard a toilet flush and glanced up as Gabe exited the bathroom that adjoined the conference room.

‘Sooo bored,’ Gabe moaned as he flicked drips off his wet hands.

Every time Julius had read an article by Remi, or one of several other prominent anti-corruption campaigners, he’d found links to more stuff he wanted to read. He was so engrossed that it took Gabe’s toilet break to make him realise he needed a pee.