The overall
award went to a Correspondent of Vintage Press Limited, publishers of the
Nation newspapers, Taiwo Alimi, while the award for the Best Report on Children was won by the correspondent of Punch
Nigeria Limited; Mr. Toluwani Eniola
Speaking at the event, the Chairman of the Panel of
Judges for this year’s edition of the awards, Ambassador Patrick
Dele Cole (OFR) described Alimi’s entry, Where the Blind Dare to Dream, as an exceptional one when compared
with the one submitted by the other nominee, Toluwani Eniola of The Punch newspaper.
Aside winning the overall trophy, Alimi
also clinched the Category award for the Best Report on Education, thereby
making a total of two honours he smiled home with. . In that category, entries
submitted by Attah Aloysius Emeka of Daily Sun, School Graduation for Sale; and by Titus Eleweke of The Union, Arresting Decline in Teaching Indigenous
Languages in Schools were adjudged the first and second runners up;
respectively.
The judges also
said Eniola’s entry: Man Abandons
Children in Boarding School for Eight Years, stood out when compared with
those submitted by other nominees.
The immediate past overall winner
of the awards in 2014, Kunle Falayi of Saturday Punch was not as lucky as he
was last year. His entry, Lagos residents
at risk from contaminated water, came second behind Eniola’s in the
Children Category with Sina Fadare’s The
teenage marijuana smoking epidemic, coming third.
Meanwhile, Guardian
Newspapers Limited, also excelled as one of its correspondents, Gbenga Salau,
smiled home with two awards. Salau, whose entry for the
Brand Advocate of the Year category
was considered best compared to others, won the trophy for the Category to beat
other nominees: Olajide Fabamise of Newswatch Times and Raheem Akingbolu of
ThisDay.
Salau’s entry for the Best report
on Nutrition Category, Nutrition as Tool
to Tackle Maternal, Child Mortality, was also adjudged outstanding compared
to Uche Akolisa’s How You Can Get the
Best Out of Fruits (Hallmark) and Chikodi Anthony Okereocha’s Anti-malnutrition Campaign Moves to
Nollywood (The Nation).
Other awardees are: Seun Akioye of
The Nation, winning the medal for the Best CSR and Industry Report; Gilbert
Alasa of The Nation, clinching the trophy for Future Writer of the Year; as
well as Ajayi Adekunle Joshua of Daily Independent, Best Photo Story.
Apart from Akioye’s entry for the
CSR & Industry Report Category, the entry submitted by Adeola Ogunrinde of
Hallmark, Prize-winning African writings
in the face of declining readership, was also nominated but it fell to the
superior display of professionalism by Akioye.
Commenting on the awards, Olivier Thiry,
Managing Director, Promasidor Nigeria Limited,
makers of Cowbell, Onga, Toptea and Loya Milk and organisers of the prestigious
Promasidor Quill awards, commended all journalists who submitted entries
for different categories of the awards.
Apart from the high-end lap-top and the
company’s products given to the overall winner, Thiry disclosed that Alimi will
be sent to London for an all-expense paid four-week multi-media journalism
training course with Thomson Foundation. Thiry added that the overall winner
will also be placed on a week’s job placement with a prominent British national
news organisation. His words: “This person will be provided with return flight,
accommodation in London, daily living allowance and tuition fees for the
training.”
Winners from all the categories with the
exception of the winner of the Best Photo Story of the Year, were given
high-end laptops, while the winner of the Best Photo Story of Year was given a
high-end camera for his excellence performance.
Thiry noted that the job of journalists
is often painstaking, adding that there is no reward that can adequately compensate
the effort. “It was in recognition of these that Promasidor Nigeria instituted
the Quill Awards in 2002 as a platform for assessing, recognizing and rewarding
for outstanding journalistic work. I am pleased to say that this competition
has been successful since its first year. As in previous years, we have been
humbled by the quality and quantity of entries for each award category which
has been growing since this competition began”, he concluded.
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