Pascal Oparada
Freelance journalist, Kiki Mordi has debunked the claim that she sidelined her colleagues in the viral BBC documentary, Sex for Grades, which tracked predatory lecturers in Nigeria and Ghana.
In a Twitter thread, Kiki said the idea behind the documentary was publicly sourced after people asked that lecturers in higher institutions in Africa be investigated for preying on innocent students.
Yesterday started with orchestrated and lightning speed accusations from people who blocked me. I was trending for hours and I hadn’t gotten ONE mention. Why? Because I won the @ICFJ Award for Storytelling.
Let’s do a bit of storytelling shall we? 🤗 pic.twitter.com/KazMqhnDIQ
— Commander of the Feminist Battalion (@kikimordi) December 11, 2020
The Nigerian Xpress had reported how Oge Obi claimed that the documentary was her brainchild.
Her account runs contrary to that of Oge Obi, who said the documentary was her brainchild. According to Obi, she conceptualized and pitched the story idea to the BBC. Mordi only narrated the story.
Obi is the lady who played the role of a 17-year-old admission seeker who got a senior lecturer breaking all the ethics of his job. He has been sacked by the university.
The role Obi played became the crux of the documentary because she got the lecturer to compromise with the supposed 17-year-old in some ways a more than 50-year-old would not do with a child of 17.
Kiki agreed that she did neither apply for nor pitched the story but that Obi never did either.
“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.
“I just kept proving how useful, brilliant and professional I was. My hard work should never erase another’s, everyone worked hard, everyone delivered. But if you claim to fight erasure, you will not speak on my experiences because you have no idea. You weren’t there.”
She also debunked the claim by Ruona Meyer that the story was publicly pitched. She said no one knew they were working on the story.
“If you weren’t in the inner circle you could never speak on what happened. So first things you must know is Ruona knows nothing. She wasn’t in any room. She used to work for the BBC and she was asked to leave. Fin.”
Meyer had accused Mordi of being ungrateful and not sharing her awards money with Oge Obi. Meyer said she was in the newsroom the day the story was pitched.
Kiki Mordi played more than a narrator in the documentary. She got a lecturer who became romantic with her and took her to 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 proven in the documentary.
