2009 Osun Osogbo Festival – photos by Tolu Ogunlesi
All images are the property of Tolu Ogunlesi © 2009. No photograph may be reproduced, copied, stored, manipulated, or used whole or in part of a derivative work, without my written permission (tolu.ogunlesi AT gmail.com). All rights reserved.
Tolu Ogunlesi wins 2009 CNN Multichoice Arts and Culture Journalism Award
PRESS RELEASE FROM CNN
NIGERIAN TOLU OGUNLESI WINS ARTS AND CULTURE AWARD AT CNN MULTICHOICE AFRICAN JOURNALIST AWARDS 2009
Tolu Ogunlesi, from Nigeria, has been awarded the Arts and Culture Award, presented by Nkepile Mabuse of CNN International on behalf of Zain Group at this year’s CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2009 Awards ceremony.
Tolu, who is a contributing editor for Glide Magazine, Nigeria, won for his story, ‘What the Truck?’, which was chosen from among 836 entries from 38 nations across the African continent.
The Awards, which rotate location each year in tribute to their pan-African credentials, returned to South Africa in 2009 and were held at a Gala ceremony hosted by CNN and MultiChoice at The International Convention Centre, Durban this evening, Saturday 18th July.
Member of the judging panel, Ferial Haafajee, Editor-in-Chief, City Press, South Africa, said: “Always a delight to read, watch and listen to, this year’s arts and culture section was particularly competitive, said the judges. Ultimately, street art won as Tolu Ogunlesi writing in Glide magazine curated a moving exhibition. Nigeria’s Molues, Danfoes and Gwongoro’s are decorated by motor display artists. He found the art in the commonplace. The trucks, buses and taxis are decorated in a riot of colour, picture and inspirational message. Among them: no condition is permanent as well as a set of religious messages. “They symbolised,” said Tolu, “…the harshness of daily existence and the stubborn hope…that makes present harshness bearable.”
Tony Maddox, Executive Vice-President and Managing Director of CNN International, said: “Tonight’s journalists join an ever-increasing number of professionals recognised by their peers over the last fourteen years. They have become part of a community of excellence, representing the very best in African journalism and maintaining the highest standards of journalistic integrity.”
Eben Greyling, President MultiChoice Africa, said: “MultiChoice’s partnership in these awards reflects our deep commitment to promoting and developing media skills and talent in Africa. We are delighted that every year these awards keep getting bigger and more competitive which signals the growing influence of the awards as the premier event in Africa’s media calendar. We congratulate the winners and all the finalists and honour their hard work and dedication while celebrating with them the telling of the African story.”
The CNN MultiChoice competition is now in its fourteenth year. Durban-based accommodation is provided by Southern Sun Elangeni. Other prestigious sponsors include: British Airways; Coca-Cola Africa; Ecobank, IPP Media, Tanzania; Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD); Safebond Africa Ltd; South African Tourism; Zain; Global Media Alliance; and A24 Media.
More Opportunities Than Ever Before to Watch the African Journalist Awards:
Viewers across the continent and across the world will this year be presented by more ways than ever before in the history of the African Journalist Awards:
- The Highlights’ Programme of the Awards ceremony will be broadcast as follows:
M-Net will broadcast the ‘Highlights Programme’ of the Award Ceremony:
M-Net Domestic (IS7) 29th July at 2305 CAT
M-Net EAST (W4 & IS10) 1st August at 2100 CAT
M-Net WEST (W4 & IS10) 1st August at 2200 CAT
AFRICA MAGIC (7) 22nd August at 1930 CAT
- Broadcasters in 44 countries on the African continent will be transmitting the ‘Highlights Programme’ during August and September.
- Internationally, the ‘Highlights Programme’ will be shown on OBE TV in the UK, The Africa Channel in the United States and on RTP Africa.
- CNN International’s longest-running feature programme, ‘Inside Africa’ will report on the Awards on Saturday 25th July at 1830 CAT.
- For the first time ever, in its new feature programme ‘BackStory’, CNN International will provide viewers with a unique, behind-the-scenes insight into how the awards and competition are put together, which airs on Monday 20th July at 2300 CAT.
- The Highlights Programme will be screened on CNN.com Live.
The overall CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2009 wins a substantial cash prize, a visit to CNN Centre in Atlanta, to attend the three week CNN Journalism Fellowship, along with the prize awarded to all category winners, which consists of a laptop computer, printer and a cash prize.
About the award:
The CNN African Journalist of the Year Award was founded in 1995 by Edward Boateng (formerly African Regional Director for Turner Broadcasting System Inc., CNN’s parent company) and the late Mohamed Amin, to recognise and encourage excellence in journalism throughout Africa.
2009 Judging Panel
The independent judging panel, chaired by Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria Limited, includes: Ferial Haffajee, Editor-in-Chief, City Press, South Africa; Joel Kibazo, journalist and media consultant; Arlindo Lopes, Secretary General of SABA – Southern African Broadcasting Association; Kim Norgaard, CNN’s Johannesburg Bureau Chief; Anna Umbima, journalist and broadcaster. Filipe Correia de Sá, Senior Producer at BBC World Service and Jean-Paul Gérouard, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at France 3 were brought in to help judge the Portuguese and French language categories.
Turner Broadcasting Corporate Social Responsibility:
In early 2009, twenty Turner staff fundraised $50,000 to build a school in Mali, which featured on CNN’s ‘BackStory’ programme and CNN Traveller magazine. The company donated funds to the project and several million dollars worth of airtime to Plan International, the NGO behind the scheme as well as funding the trip for the volunteers who helped build the school. Over the last three years the company and its staff have also provided houses in South Africa with Habitat for Humanity and schooling, food, drugs and transport for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Kenya with UNICEF. Using their paid volunteer time staff have also created advertisements and logos for African charities and CNN has donated airtime. The company is now planning to build a school in Rwanda in 2010.
MultiChoice South Africa Corporate Social Responsibility:
MultiChoice South Africa’s Corporate Social Investment strategy is underpinned by the need to make a sustainable and lasting impact in the communities in which it operates. Our focus areas include: media development, education and the orphaned and vulnerable children. Through direct technology investments and support, the company enables individuals and communities to help themselves. It is about promoting independence and not dependence. The company also supports local communities, through encouraging employees to contribute their time and skills towards charity organisations and/or causes that they are most passionate about. The programme makes provision for team participation initiatives which go hand in hand with grants given to employees to implement their activities.
Online: 234Next, Publishing Perspectives
My latest NEXT Blog, AMBULANCES ARE NOT FOR (THE) LIVING, appears here
Read previous blog posts from my column ONGOING CONCERNS, here
My first piece for Publishing Perspectives [a brand new international publishing newsletter, edited by Ed Nawotka] is here. It’s a report from the recently concluded Guardian Hay Festival 2009 in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. I have just come on board as a correspondent, and will be contributing regularly, especially on issues relating to Publishing on the African Continent.
New publications – May/June 2009…
Wordsetc Q1 Issue, 2009 – read an excerpt from my travel essay here (.doc download)
My story, RIVER FALLING, in New Writing from Africa 2009 – anthology of stories shortlisted for the inaugural PEN/Studzinski Literary Prize. Published by Johnson and King James, SA. See all the shortlisted writers here
My review/essay on Blonde Roots (the latest novel by British writer Bernardine Evaristo), commissioned by the Harvard Africa Policy Journal of the (published by the John F. Kennedy School of Government) appears in Volume 5 of the journal (Volume theme: AFRICA RISING). You may read the Editor’s Remarks online here
What I’ve been up to…
Last Wednesday I attended the 2009 Orange Prize Awards Ceremony, at the Royal Festival Hall of the SouthBank Center, London. I was dressed in my buba and sokoto, with a Hausa cap to go with it… I went confident that the ceremony would be better off with some ‘native’ colour 
At the end of the day I realised that the ceremony had a lot to learn from Nigerian awards dinners (the NLNG Prize Dinner for example)… about the virtues of starting late (African Time), choking the programme with speeches and musical/dance performances and last but not the least, providing proper food.
The awards ceremony itself was over in 25 minutes. In Nigeria, 25 minutes wouldn’t be enough to read the detailed biographies of all the special guests and keynote speakers and other VIPs, as they are welcomed to the High Table.
Marilynne Robinson took home the $30,000 prize, for her novel, Home. She’s previously won the Pulitzer, with her second novel (Gilead, 2004), which came 24 years after her debut.
Bernardine Evaristo won the Youth Panel Award, for her brilliant novel, Blonde Roots, which I recently reviewed for the Harvard Africa Policy Journal (Volume 5) (see Editor’s Remarks here)
***
The day after the Orange Dinner I catch a Eurostar train to Brussels, from where I make my way to the small Belgian town of Turnhout, where I am holidaying for a little over a week. I write now from Turnhout… a few hours ago I was at a housewarming party where a live Gypsy band played, and I danced the cold away…
There are plans to visit Eindhoven (Netherlands), and a yet-to-be-determined German city in the week ahead…
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Nwaubani’s debut novel, I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE, has just been published in the UK (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and US (Hyperion).
I’m almost done reading it, and will be doing a review of it as well. It’s a well-told story, a laugh-out-loud one, and the characters leap off the page at you. The Nigerian characters are TRULY-NIGERIAN , and one of the main characters, CASH DADDY, is one of the most interesting, most compelling, most lovable characters you will ever come across, whether in a novel or in real life.
Nwaubani has a very interesting and hilarious article, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SWIM ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, in NEXT, about her journey from novel-writer to published novelist. Read it here
Buy I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE on Amazon, here
Read an interview with Nwaubani, on African-writing.com, here
I absolutely love her sense of humour!
