Journalists win millions at 6th Golden Pen awards

Nigeria Breweries Plc has celebrated some journalists for their outstanding reports, awarding them cash prizes ranging from N200,000 to N1m.

The award ceremony, which held at the Lantana Hall of Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, on Thursday evening was attended by leaders of the corporate industry, journalists, the award-winners and their colleagues.

Speaking at the event, managing director of Nigeria Breweries Plc, Mr Nicholas Vervelde, expressed the happiness of the company with rewarding journalists who have excelled in the course of their duty in 2013.

Vervelde noted that NB Plc’s theme for the Golden Pen awards and other projects such as Star Trek, Gulder Ultimate Star, Ferouz fashion shows and the Maltina Dance Hall  are part of NB Plc’s social responsibility programme based on discovering and developing the abundant talents in the country.

A member of the jury revealed that the criteria for selecting the rewarded journalists were originality, adherence to rules of the contest, accuracy, fairness in reporting, objectivity, depth of writing, conformity with ethics of the profession, currency of the report and the social responsibility.

The biggest award of the night, NB Plc Best Reporter of the Year, was won by Seun Akioye of The Nation, for his story, Even the Rich Envy us the Way we Live, an expose on Dustbin Estate, a community in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos. Akiode was presented with a cheque of N1million.

Joseph Undu of the Daily Champion was named the first runner-up and given N300, 000 for his captivating story titled, NB Stuns Lagos Community with Independent Powered Street Light.

Mojeed Alabi of the New Telegraph emerged the second runner-up, winning N200, 000 for his story, Victory at Last: WAEC Finally Releases Withheld Certificate, 5 Years After.

The second award category, NB  Plc’s Reporter of the year was won by Raheem Akingbolu of ThisDay newspaper, who went home with N500, 000 cheque for his report titled,Star: Beyond Music in the Bottle. There were no runner-ups for this category.

For the last award category, Sulaiman Hussaini of New Telegraph was named the NB Plc’s Photo-journalist of the year and presented with a cheque of N300,000. The first runner-up was Stanley Ogidi of Sunday Punch with a cheque of N250,000, while Ayodele Ojo of Daily Sun as the second runner-up with a cheque of N200,000.

Collecting his award, Mojeed Alabi of New Telegraph dedicated it to Alhaji Suleiman Bisalla — the late editor of the paper who died in the bomb blast at Emab Plaza in June — and to the abducted Chibok girls.