Journalists celebrated at the 2015 Quill Awards
It was a night of celebration on Friday, May 22nd when Taiwo Alimi, a journalist with the Nation Newspaper, was declared the overall winner of the third edition of the Promasidor Quill Awards, which took place at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers. With his entry entitled "Where the blind dare to dream". Alimi beat several other contestants to win the star prize of a four-week all-expenses paid multimedia journalism training course with the Thomson Foundation in London, followed by a one-week work placement with a prominent British national news organisation. Alimi's entry also won in the category for the Best Report on Education.
Other winners at the well attended event include Gbenga Salau of The Guardian who won the Brand Advocate of the Year and Best Report on Nutrition, Eniola Toluwani of the Punch newspaper who picked up the award for the Best Report on Children and Ajayi Joshua of Daily Independent who won in the Best Photo Story category. Seun Akioye and Gilbert Alasa both of The Nation clinched the award for Best Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) & Industry Report of The Year and Future Writer of the Year respectively. 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 the Year was given a high-end camera.
While opening the event, Managing Director Olivier Thiry, thanked the judges for painstakingly going through all the entries and congratulated all the journalists for sending in their entries, saying that the award ceremony was one way to ensure that their efforts as gatekeepers were not marginalised or overlooked. "Whether or not you go home with a prize is irrelevant, but after tonight, the quality of your reportage will increase and that is what we are aiming at," said Mr Thiry.