Dec 14, 2009
On Tuesday, the 8th of December, The Future Awards released its much-awaited list of nominees for the 2010 edition of the awards on its website. “It’s a rich list!” said Emilia Asim-Ita, the awards’ PR Director. “I am so proud of it; it took two months of gruelling work and research, but I look at the list of another 160 high-achieving young Nigerians and I think to myself: wow, we have been representing!”
The long list was released after two months of calling for nominations, and having town hall meetings across eight states of the federation (Osun, Adamawa, Edo, Rivers, Cross River, Enugu, Abuja and Kaduna), in conjunction with HiTV, as well as Accra, Johannesburg, Manchester and London, reaching out to young Nigerians in order to get a fine spread of nominations and participation. All the nominees are Nigerian citizens aged 18 – 31.
In the Musician of the Year category, nominees are Wande Coal, MI, Kel, Darey, Rooftop MCs, Banky W and Psquare. Actor of the Year has Mercy Johnson, Omoni Oboli, Ali Nuhu, Nonso Diobi, Kemi Lala Akindoju, Mercy Aigbe, Tonto Dikeh and Mnet Tinsel’s Gideon Okeke.
The Journalist of the Year category has Toyosi Ogunseye (The Punch), Ruonah Godwin-Agbroko (NEXT) Rachel Ogbu (Newswatch), Funke Adetutu (BusinessDay) Chinedu Iroche (NEXT) Afolabi Adekoya (Citypeople), Segun Adeoye (TELL) and Amina Alhassan (Daily Trust).
“The Best Use of Science category was particularly challenging, and we were afraid more than once that we would not get nominees and would have to cancel it,” Ms. Asim-Ita said. “But at the end of the day, we were pleasantly surprised.” The eight nominees in that category are nominated for inventions and research in malaria, electricity inverters, magnetic safety bumpers, waste management solutions, and robotics.