Organisers announce shortlists for 2017 Nigerian Sports Award

Organisers of the Nigerian Sports Award have announced shortlist of nominees for the sixth anniversary edition of the prestigious sports awards ceremony. At a press briefing held in Lagos on Thursday, The Chairman of the newly constituted panel, Mr. Kweku Tandoh however announced nominees for five different categories that include Ball sports Personality of the year, Sportsman of the Year, Sportswoman of the Year, Sports Governor of the Year, Team of the Year. Tandoh who was highly excited about the response of the public to the forthcoming awards ceremony said it was a delight that the award is moving a notch higher considering the attraction it was getting year in year out. According to Tandoh, nominees for this year’s award would be in 16 categories that include Discovery of the year. Some of the nominees include Akuh Purity, Kennedy Boboye and Sam Vincent, .The trio will be competing for the Coach of the Year. While the likes of Aruna Quadri, Ike Diogu and Evelyn Akhator make up the three finalists for Ball Sports of the Year, the trio of Victor Moses, Anthony Okpotu, Stephen Odeh are expected to slug it out for the Male footballer of the Year.
The list of categories to be competed for include; Coach of the year, Wrestler of the Year, Ball Sports of the Year, Female Footballer of the Year, Sportsman of the Year, Sportswoman of the Year, Sports Administrator of the Year, Sports Governor of the Year, Sportswriter of the Year (Radio), Male Footballer of the Year, Sports Journalist of the Year (TV), TV Sports Journalist, Print Sports Journalist of the Year and Team of the Year, Discovery of the Year. Besides, Tandoh noted that special recognition award would also be given to five deserving sport individuals and companies who have done tremendously to advance sports in the last 12 months. To earn a place in the shortlist, Victor Moses was highly instrumental to the success of Chelsea football team that won the English Premiership last season while Anthony Okputu earned his place after topping the highest goals scorer chart in the just concluded NPFL. In the case of D’ Tigers and D’ Tigress, both team earned their place on the shortlist for their superlative performance at the Africa Basketball competition held in Mali and eventual qualification for the basketball World Cup coming up soon. Besides, Kennedy Boboye earned his place in the list after spearheading Plateau United team to win the just concluded Nigerian Professional Football League.
Speaking during the press conference, Tandoh said the panel did a lot of scrutiny noting that the process for selection was fair and transparent as voting from public determined the shortlist.
He said” We have taken time to look at the nominees for the different categories. We did justice to arrive at the nominees for the different categories. The process was transparent and fair. We can proudly say that the nominees selected for the 15 categories deserve to be winners by all standard.”
Another member of the panel, Mr. Kayode Idowu who spoke on the final selection for the award said the exercise was quite rigorous as members took time to analyse the choices before arriving at the list. A member of the panel who is also a representative of the Federal Ministry of Sports, Mrs. Hauwakilu Akinyemi commended the organizer for the award. She said the award has remained critical to sports development in Nigeria considering its role in motivating the young sport lovers.
Speaking on the mechanism for voting, Idowu disclosed that the public would be open to four different options that include messaging option, twitter, manual format and voting through the award website. To vote for nominee of their choice, Idowu said members of the public are expected to log on to the award website, nigeriansportsaward.com or vote on the award twitter handle, @ngrsportsaward.
Voting is open to the public, beginning from today, October 5 and to last till November 12, 2017.