PwC Media Excellence Awards

About the award

The PwC Media Excellence Awards celebrates and rewards excellence in business reporting in Nigeria. The competition is open to professional journalists on a full time employment or freelancers, working in Nigeria, who have produced a story that falls within the categories covered by the award and that is available on a platform whose primary audience is Nigeria.

Submissions

To enter for Media Excellence Awards, 2023, please ensure to upload your entry and a passport image. Remember that entries of whatever file type must not exceed 5MB in size. Requirements marked with * are mandatory. Please ensure you have read the entry guidelines before proceeding.

Watch: Media Capability Workshop 2023

03/10/23

2023 Capability Enhancement Workshop for Journalists

Entries close 31 July 2023

Submit your entries for the PwC Media Excellence Awards 2023

What the judges will be looking for

Our panel of independent, respected and experienced judges will be looking for entries that:

Display well organised research and insight
Demonstrate journalistic integrity
Show originality and resourcefulness in crafting their story
Are very relevant to the Nigerian situation
Follow the provisions of the entry guidelines

The Prize

The journalists selected in each category by our panel of judges will be named the Journalist of the year in that category and will receive a cash prize of N500, 000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira)

SMEs Reporting

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Winners and Losers of Nigeria's Border Closure

Caleb Ojewale of Business Day is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the SMEs Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Winners and Losers of Nigeria's Border Closure'.

Tax and Fiscal Policy Reporting

Maritime Bandits I & II

Yahaya Nurudeen Akewushola of The International Centre for Investigative Reporting is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Tax & Fiscal Policy Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Maritime Bandits (Part 1 & 2)'. This report is in two parts.

Sustainability Reporting:

Feasting on the forbidden: Tales of unending wildlife, environmental crimes

Kingsley Jeremiah of The Guardian is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards for the Sustainability reporting Category. Entry title: 'Feasting on the forbidden: Tales of unending wildlife, environmental crimes'.

Special Investigative Reporting:

West Africa Weekly Aviation Special

David Hundeyin of West Africa Weekly is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Special Investigative Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘West Africa Weekly Aviation Special’.

Finance and Capital Markets Reporting:

How Are Terrorists in Nigeria Funding their Violent Campaigns?

Kunle Adebajo of HumAngle is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards for the Finance & Capital Markets Reporting Category. Entry title: 'How Are Terrorists in Nigeria Funding their Violent Campaigns? '.

Business and Economy Reporting:

Banking Made Easy…But Not For People With Disabilities In West Africa

Ronald Adamolekun of Premium Times is the winner of the 2023 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Business & Economy Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘Facing High Wheat Prices, Nigerian Bakers Turn to Potato Puree’.

SMEs Reporting

As Nigerian government slumbers, N144bn Aba shoe industry crawls

Odinaka Anudu of ICIR is the winner of the 2022 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the SMEs Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘As Nigerian government slumbers, N144bn Aba shoe industry crawls’ The piece explores the challenges faced by the Aba leather industry.

Tax and Fiscal Policy Reporting

Legal battle over VAT collection stirs debates on equity, fiscal federalism I & II

Tunde Ajala of Punch is the winner of the 2022 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Tax & Fiscal Policy Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Legal battle over VAT collection stirs debates on equity, fiscal federalism I & II'. This report is in two parts. The first part of the story focused on the merits and demerits of the Court Order, which grants States and not the Federal government power to collect VAT. And the second part looks at the impact of the delay in justice delivery in tax administration.

Finance and Capital Markets Reporting:

Nigeria’s green bond is driving a quiet boom

Isaac Anyaogu of Business Day is the winner of the 2022 PwC Media Excellence Awards for the Finance & Capital Markets Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Nigeria’s green bond is driving a quiet boom'. This report looks at the learning outcomes five months after a 2MW solar energy project at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, funded by Nigeria’s first green bond, became operational.

Business and Economy Reporting:

Banking Made Easy…But Not For People With Disabilities In West Africa

Kunle Adebajo of Humangle Media is the winner of the 2022 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Business & Economy Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘Banking Made Easy…But Not For People With Disabilities In West Africa’. Spotlights on the lack of inclusion of people with disabilities even when the banks in West Africa can boast of easy banking. This report highlights the struggles of people with disabilities and the problems they go through when it comes to banking in West Africa.

SMEs Reporting

Odo-Owa: Kwara community where widowed black soap makers raise children with meagre proceeds

Afeez Hanafi of The Punch is the winner of the 2021 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the SMEs Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Odo-Owa: Kwara community where widowed black soap makers raise children with meagre proceeds'. The piece explains the struggles of widows in a community in Kwara state and how the returns made from it is what is used for the training and upkeep of their families.

Tax and Fiscal Policy Reporting

Money for the boys: How ‘agberos’ pocket billions of Lagos transport revenue

Odinaka Anudu of The ICIR is the winner of the 2021 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Tax & Fiscal Policy Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘Money for the boys: How ‘agberos’ pocket billions of Lagos transport revenue’. This news story gives an insight to how transport revenue of the state of Lagos ends in the pocket of the ‘agberos’. It is recorded that a total of 418.9 billion naira was calculated to be the revenue on transportation in the year 2020.

Finance and Capital Markets Reporting:

Unclaimed Dividends: Controversy over transfer to federation account

Nkiruka Nnorom of Vanguard is the winner of the 2021 PwC Media Excellence Awards for the Finance & Capital Markets Reporting Category. Entry title: 'Unclaimed Dividends: Controversy over transfer to federation account'. In this article, Nkiruka explains the efforts made so far to address the piling unclaimed dividends in NIgeria and why the planned transfer to the federation account be jettisoned. Read more

Business and Economy Reporting:

Investigation: Kickbacks for referrals (1,2 and 3)

Nicholas Ibekwe of Premium Times is the winner of the 2021 PwC Media Excellence Awards in the Business & Economy Reporting Category. Entry title: ‘Investigation: Kickbacks for referrals (1,2 and 3)’.

SMEs Reporting:

'A fistful of poisoned gold' by Isaac Anyaogu of BusinessDay

Despite two lethal outbreaks of lead poisoning in northern Nigeria, thousands of people still eke a living digging the underbelly of the earth for gold. They have formed mining clusters which have morphed into lucrative small businesses. The reporter visited Shikira, in Niger State, getting over the outbreak of lead poisoning four years ago and found that only better regulation will ensure safer mining and deliver greater value.

'How Lagos revenue goes into private pockets' by Odinaka Anudu of BusinessDay.

The reporter went undercover to investigate how officials of the state governement were corruptly enriching themselves with revenue that should go into the state purse.

‘FACT CHECK: Nigeria told UN that 7 varsities run strictly on renewable energy, but is this true? by Taiwo Adebulu of The Cable

In September 2019, Mohammed Mahmood, Nigeria’s minister of environment, speaking at the 2019 climate action summit in New York, said seven federal universities are running strictly on solar energy and 30 more are subscribing to the use of renewable energy. THis rpeorter did a fact check on the claim.

‘Dangerous cylinders: Needless deaths in Nigeria’s poorly regulated cooking gas sector'by Tunde Ajala of The Punch.

Amid government’s quest for rapid growth of the nation’s cooking gas market, one of the challenges facing the growing market is the rate of cylinder explosions posing a threat to many homes, this reporter writes