Journalists shine at Promasidor Quill Awards

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; 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.

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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 said.