The Guardian wins .ng media excellence award

For excellent journalism and media practice both online and offline, The Guardian has emerged winner of the .ng Media Award.The Guardian beat nine other media houses including Nigerian Television Authority, Leadership, Daily Post, The Cable, Daily Times, Nigerian Communications Week, Techsmart, Daily Trust Media, among others to the award.

According to the Nigeria Internet Registration Agency (NiRA), organisers of the award, at the event, which took place in Lagos at the weekend, the .ng Media Award recognises excellence in journalism and other media-related activities.

NiRA, which is responsible for the management of the Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain Name (ccTLD), dot ng stated that the category was made open to all media houses in Nigeria, whether, print, online and television.

The award, according to NiRA was judged based on the level of local and original content promoted by such a media house and its websites.

According to NIRA, the event was the maiden edition of its .ng Web Awards 2016, which co-located with its 10th anniversary dinner and an avenue to celebrate the best in the Nigerian Internet community.

In his welcome address, the President of NiRA, Rev. Sunday Folayan, said the award was organised to honour the best within the .ng community, through their outreach that cuts across the globe, stressing that it was to appreciate excellence in promoting the .ng brand since the inception of NiRA.

“The key to these nominations are establishments doing business with a .ng domain name either as second level or third level and directly or indirectly promoting the .ng brand,” he stressed.

Folayan explained that for the 2016 .ng web award, all qualifying websites were considered irrespective of whether they are hosted locally or not.

According to him, the Domain Name System (DNS) industry is a revenue generator with abundant business opportunities, which are vast.
“There are employment opportunities using the .ng brand, enhances Nigeria’s local content, visibility of Nigerian businesses, products and services online, among others. We get to project our culture, heritage and promote our economy. This will further enlighten our people to the importance of their .ng online identity.

“NiRA is happy to be numbered amongst those highlighting and providing job opportunities to and for our youths. We must create jobs, distribute wealth and grow our economy. Nigerian youths must take advantage of the abundant opportunities to be employers of labour and not white collar job seekers. There are honest business opportunities such as apps developers, content developers, website designers and/or developers, .ng Resellers among others,” Folayan stressed.

Other categories of winners include Technology Company of the year, which saw Google.com.ng beat Etisalat, MTN business.com and Spectranet.

Jumia won the most innovative web company (an award presented to the organisation with the highest investments in their presence that promotes innovation and marketing). Best banking portal was given to Fidelity Bank Plc; Unilag.edu.ng won the best educational website; while eazyhire.com.ng won the technology startup firm of the year. The best hosting company award went to Galaxy backbone; Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) won the public sector star website award; Lagos State won best state government award, while the most valuable youth organisation award went to the Nigeria Association of Computer Science Students.