The Editor of Saturday Tribune, Dr, Lasisi Olagunju, and the newspaper’s former Senior Reporter, Justice Nwafor, have emerged winners in the 2024 Diamond Award for Media Excellence.
Dr. Olagunju won the Informed Commentary category of the 2024 edition of the prestigious awards, which is the 33rd in the series.
Nwafor emerged winner of the Solid Minerals Reporting category of the same award.
Olagunju’s entry: “Helen Paul and other bastardy stories,” which was published in the Nigerian Tribune on November 23, 2023, was selected ahead of Azu Ishiekwene’s entries published in the Leadership, which were adjudged first and second runner-ups in the category.
The DAME described Olagunju’s piece as a gripping commentary on the experience of Paul, a product of rape, who grew to become a celebrity, which was used to “discuss the issue of bastardy in society and the agony it brings the usual female victims”.
It will be recalled that Olagunju also clinched the 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023 editions of the awards.
Similarly, Nwafor’s two-part investigation on environmental degradation in Plateau State was selected ahead of the entries by Dare Akogun and Chikodi Okoreocha.
The first part of the investigation: “Decades after Mining Ceased Communities in Plateau Still Suffer Environmental Impacts,” was published in the Nigeria Tribune on May 12, 2023.
The second part: “How Poor Regulation of Artisanal Mining Impacts Health of Indigenous Communities in Jos,” was published on June 16, 2023.
The organisers described Nwafor’s winning entry as a public service call for better regulation of the mining sector to contain environmental degradation and adverse effects on the locals whose personal health and economic wellbeing stand imperilled even after large-scale mining stops.
