Investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo has concluded his first photography exhibition, Desserts from the Desert, offering a visual account of the dangers faced by African migrants travelling through the Sahara Desert towards Europe. The exhibition, which was open from October 26 to October 28, 2026 at Alliance Française de Lagos, Ikoyi, draws from Soyombo’s three-part undercover investigation, UNDERCOVER: Europe Through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. For 47 days, the journalist travelled undercover as a migrant from Kano through Niger Republic and Libya, documenting the experiences of people attempting the dangerous journey. His investigation uncovered accounts of starvation, sexual violence, abduction, torture, forced confinement and modern-day enslavement involving migrants from Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia.
Through photographs taken along the route, the exhibition brings viewers into the spaces where migrants are transported, hidden and held captive. Among the images are a house in Kano where Soyombo spent a night with other migrants, a compound in the Libyan desert town of Ash Shwarnyf where migrants were confined, and a holding facility in Ghut Shaal where a migrant had written “God Save Me” on a vehicle in a plea for rescue. Other photographs capture migrants sleeping in the open desert and living in overcrowded houses with little ventilation. The final images document Soyombo himself after he secured his release from a holding house in Tripoli by paying a ransom. Describing the exhibition as a way to tell stories that words alone cannot fully convey, he called on government agencies to take action against traffickers and urged public officeholders to address the conditions driving people to leave their homes.
Soyombo is the founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), an independent media organisation known for investigations into corruption, abuse of power and social injustice. Through FIJ, he has pursued accountability journalism and reporting on issues affecting ordinary Nigerians. At the exhibition opening, he also highlighted the organisation’s wider impact, noting that its investigations had helped recover more than ₦440 million for Nigerians over five years. The event brought together journalists, media executives, civil society leaders, artists and public figures, including Kate Henshaw, Tunde Onakoya and Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Executive Director Motunrayo Alaka. Beyond documenting the realities of irregular migration, Desserts from the Desert asks audiences to confront the human cost of the journey and the circumstances that continue to push people towards it.
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