Winners have emerged from the 2023 PwC Nigeria Media Excellence Awards.
A statement issued by Sylva Ifedigbo, Country Lead, Marketing & Communications, PwC Nigeria, indicates that winners emerged in the six categories of the contest.
In the SMEs reporting category, Caleb Ojewale of Business Day emerged the winner with the entry, “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Winners and Losers of Nigeria’s Border Closure.”
Ronald Adamolekun of Premium Times won the Business & Economy reporting category with the entry, “Facing High Wheat Prices, Nigerian Bakers Turn to Potato Puree,” while David Hundeyin of West Africa Weekly won the Special Investigative reporting category with the entry, “West Africa Weekly Aviation Special.”
In the Finance & Capital Markets reporting category, Kunle Adebajo of HumAngle won with the entry, “How Are Terrorists in Nigeria Funding their Violent Campaigns?” while in the Tax & Fiscal Policy reporting: Yahaya Nurudeen Akewushola of The International Centre for Investigative Reporting emerged winner with the entry, “Maritime Bandits (Part 1 & 2)”.
In Sustainability reporting, Kingsley Jeremiah of The Guardian won with the entry, “Feasting on the forbidden: Tales of unending wildlife, environmental crimes.”
The first-place winners in each category receive a cash prize of ₦500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira), while second and third-placed winners receive ₦150,000 and ₦50,000, respectively.
In his opening remarks at the 2023 PwC Nigeria Media Excellence awards ceremony, Sam Abu, Country Senior Partner, PwC Nigeria, noted that:
“For a decade now, PwC Nigeria has focused attention and resources on enhancing the quality of media reporting in Nigeria as part of our corporate responsibility and societal purpose strategy. We started in 2013 with the annual Capability Enhancement Workshops for journalists and two years after we introduced the Media Excellence Awards as a platform to reward those who produce exceptional reports across all platforms in four categories namely: Business and economy reporting, Tax and fiscal policy reporting, Capital markets reporting and SME reporting.
This year, we added two new categories to our Media Excellence Awards – Sustainability reporting and Special investigative reporting – in recognition of the importance of sustainability in all human endeavours and the advancement of investigative reporting in the country.
Beyond just giving out the cash prizes to the winners, we hope that this award continues to motivate journalists working in Nigeria to take greater interest in business reporting, which is key to the economic development of our country, and aim for excellence while at it. When we succeed at this, we will have fulfilled our purpose as a firm, which is to build trust in society and solve important problems.”
The judges of the 2023 awards included Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman, Presidential Fiscal Policy & Tax Reforms Committee (Head Judge); Andrew S. Nevin (PhD), Research Professor and Inaugural Director, The Brainomics Venture; Dr. Glory Edozien, Branding thought leader and LinkedIn visibility coach; and Cyril Stober, Veteran Broadcaster/Journalist, Editor, Television News Anchor & Talk Show Host of more than four decades.
