Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards 2012 launched to celebrate top business journalism on Africa

Diageo, the world’s leading premium drinks business, today launched its annual Africa Business Reporting Awards for 2012.  The Awards, initiated by Diageo in 2004, recognise journalists and editors who provide high quality coverage of the business environment in Africa. Diageo believes that better and more accurate reporting plays a critical role in framing Africa’s economic prospects and challenges. It encourages greater interest in doing good business, which in turns creates the right environment for sustained prosperity on the continent.

Nick Blazquez, President, Diageo Africa, outlined the importance of the Awards:

“Business interest in Africa has clearly accelerated as the world focuses on the continent’s impressive growth prospects. As a company that operates right across Africa, we at Diageo understand the increasingly important role business journalism has in creating the right environment to operate successfully and to attract long-term investment. As I look back over the development of these Awards, I recognise a sizeable shift in the standards of business journalism and the increased efforts of the media both inside and outside of Africa to promote trade and enterprise on the continent. I take great pride that Diageo can celebrate these achievements and look forward to another year of outstanding contribution.”  

As the Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards approach their tenth anniversary, Diageo is continually thinking about ways to evolve the Awards’ relevance, impact and reach. Diageo hopes to build on the success of previous years, welcoming entries from all media platforms and from all over Africa and beyond. This year, the New Media category has been removed as a separate category to reflect the ubiquity of multimedia use in modern news-telling. Submissions of pieces using new media are now encouraged across the board: all media, including blogs and other online material are eligible in every category.

The awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, 28 June 2012 in central London. The closing date for entry is Friday, 23 March, 2012. Entries can be submitted online at: ww.diageoafricabusinessreportingawards.com. There is no entry fee.

The Categories

1.       Best Information and Communication Technology (ICT) feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that examines any aspect of the ICT sector in a thoughtful and engaging way.

2.       Best Finance feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that examines any aspect of the finance/banking sector in a thoughtful and engaging way.

3.       Best Infrastructure feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that examines any aspect of infrastructure (physical or otherwise) in a thoughtful and engaging way. Features addressing issues of energy and transport can enter this category.

4.       Best Agribusiness / Environment feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that examines any aspect of agribusiness or environmental issues in a thoughtful and engaging way.

5.       Best Tourism feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that examines any aspect of the tourism industry in a thoughtful and engaging way.

6.       Best Business News story

A news story or series of related stories delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that:

·            Addresses a breaking news story from the time period of the awards

·            Answers all basic questions in a clear and balanced fashion

·            Demonstrates journalistic flair – a style that is engaging, thought-provoking and   

         accessible to its audience

7.       Best Business feature

A feature or series of related features delivered on any media platform (print, broadcast, online) that:

·         Examines business or the economy in an African context

·         Provides useful and relevant background material for readers

·         Provides the bigger picture and importance to Africa, as well as specific issues it might be addressing

·         Brings the business and economy to life through examples and use of language, while answering the serious questions

8.       Best Newcomer

A portfolio of three features (can be across different platforms) by a journalist who has been working as a reporter for less than five years. Proof of first date of accreditation will be required.

9.       Media of the Year

A print publication, broadcast programme/channel, website or blog that is a comprehensive resource for its audience providing sustained coverage of Africa’s business and economic news, issues and analysis (sector-specific or otherwise).

10.   Journalist of the Year

A portfolio of three features (on any one or a mixture of media platforms) of no more than 5,000 words or 1 hour each. Submitted pieces can cover different topics, industries or people, or be part of a series of reportage.  Judges will be looking for features that reflect journalistic integrity and ethics and a true commitment to reporting that does not sensationalise stories or individuals.

For more information, visit www.diageoafricabusinessreportingawards.com or contact:

Alexandra Reza, Awards Secretary, areza@africapractice.com, +44 (0) 207 087 3788

Ciara O’Keeffe, Corporate Relations, Diageo Africa, Ciara.OKeeffe@diageo.com, +44 208 978 2876

About Diageo plc and Diageo Africa

Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks business with an outstanding collection of beverage alcohol brands across spirits, wines, and beer categories. Diageo is a global company, trading in more than 180 countries around the world. The company is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE).

Diageo Africa is primarily a beer and spirits company whose brands are sold in more than 40 countries in Africa. Diageo has a long established presence in Africa with the first recorded exports of Guinness to Sierra Leone in 1827. Guinness is a truly pan-regional premium beer brand brewed in over 20 countries throughout the continent and is exported to many others. Diageo’s businesses also produce and sell a range of local beer brands including Tusker, Senator Keg, Premium Serengeti Lager, Meta, Harp and Bell. Diageo is also the leading premium spirits company in Africa, and its great brands include Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky, Smirnoff vodka, Baileys and Gilbeys gin.

Diageo Africa employs over 5,000 people accounting for one in four of Diageo’s workforce worldwide. In some key markets it has built its own in-market businesses with distribution access to trade channels, some of which have listings on local stock exchanges. In other markets, it will look to partner with a local business, through licensing brands or through third party distribution.  All of these companies have active community investment programmes, covering initiatives in water, farming and rural value chains, health, education and other areas of value to the communities in which they operate across Africa.

Diageo has recently published its report on its business approach in Africa. You can download it at http://www.diageo.com/en-row/CSR/Pages/resource.aspx?resourceid=1078

The Nigerian Police and ineptitude

What comes to mind when you think about the Nigerian Police? Surely not smartly dressed law keepers, making sure the society’s wheels are oiled – well enough to see to the smooth running of things – and the protection of you and yours.

I will not be far from the truth if I state that the image that comes to the average Nigerian’s mind, following questions of this nature, is that of an AK47 toting, ill-fittingly-dressed bugger whose major objective is to collect illegal tolls from commercial drivers.

I will also not be incorrect if I go further to add that what comes to mind when you behold them during crisis is not a feeling of relief, but mind numbing fear that compels you to take off faster than the guilty party, or risk becoming a victim. Little wonder witnesses who would have been instrumental to solving cases seldom turn up when called to do so. Even when they do turn up, or are compelled to do so, accompanying tales of sordid experiences in police cells make it difficult for would be witnesses to toe their path.

These and other more horrifying images have for years remained the general perception of the police, and despite cosmetic attempts by the government and police authorities to change this, it has so far remained thus.

How did the police, an institution that in other climes exude perfection and is many a nation’s pride, get to the sorry state where it is being viewed with the same consternation one does a terrorist organisation? The answer, and consequently, the truth, is the fact that the police in Nigeria has never been a people-centric institution. From its early days as a colonial enforcer, the police have acted as an enemy of the people and a friend to the subjugating authorities.

The Nigerian Police has for years, whether institutionalised or not is a question for another day, maintained the image of brutality that have become synonymous with them by implementing very little attitudinal changes – beyond pasting the slogan “the police is your friend” on the walls of their offices, and cars.

They are more likely to shoot suspects in cold blood, than thoroughly investigate crimes – the present Boko Haram crisis is traceable to this heinous penchant. Even when they arrest suspects, they are apt to dump them in the nation’s equally pathetic prisons, where they add to the number of awaiting trial inmates whose cases stalls for months on account of missing or non-filed case files.

The rot in the Nigerian Police Force touches all strata of the institution. I am personally yet to meet a police officer who would not take a proffered bribe or demand for such. However, this is not to say that they do not exist, it only shows that they are very rare and the practice is in effect, a culture. Furthermore, the professionalism that one would expect is largely absent. Records are still being kept in old style file cabinets – in this age of info technology when seamless coordination is at the beck and call of even secondary school students.

However, the most visible evidence of the state the Nigerian Police Force, as well as the mindset of its leadership and rank and file, is exemplified by the state of their vehicles, which, after a few months of use, look nothing less than moving scraps. A situation that portrays a dearth of maintenance culture, especially when similar vehicles belonging to other security agencies, bought or donated at the same period, remain in prime condition.

The lack of entrenched professionalism in all cadres, unwillingness to adjust to present realities by the police authorities, and the consistent resort to the force attached to their name while dealing with the man on the street, makes the Nigerian Police ill equipped to deal with the realities of the day.

However, like in most problems that afflict the world we live in, there are solutions.

For starters, modernising the Nigerian Police Force; this can be achieved by connecting all police stations in Nigeria to the Internet and providing basic IT knowledge to the men.  This will go a long way in addressing the lack of coordination that result from the widespread use of archaic filing methods, which make it impossible to share information between stations at the click of a button.

Another thing that needs urgent and serious checking is the penchant for plain-clothes policemen to be indistinguishable from armed robbers, or how else would one describe men in shoddy tee-shirts and jeans, toting AK47’s?

That brings us to another salient point, manning the police with intelligent, dedicate officers. There are thousands of intelligent, dedicated and resourceful graduates currently walking the streets of Nigeria looking for any job to do; harnessing this ready manpower would go a long way in addressing many of the issues relating to image and intelligence.

I doubt, however, that the police, as presently constituted, is geared for change. If that hunch is infallible, then Nigerians have no option but continue existing in a society where their avowed protectors are already incapacitated by ineptitude.

Wrote this article last year for DailyTimes.com but thought to re-post here after the event described by the picture below culled from Sahara Reporters

Occupy Nigeria: Sustaining the momentum

The fuel subsidy protests have come and gone. The dead have probably been buried, with only the pain, deeply etched on the heart of mothers, siblings and others connected to the deceased, left to mark their passing. Whatever the circumstance of their passing, the sacrifice of those martyrs that fell to the bullets of their own police force is great; greater even, than many may care to know. For upon the blood of these ones, Nigerians laid a foundation for a future that may well be bright.

While death, injury and perhaps permanent handicap to some victims can be said to be prominent among the things that the Occupy Nigeria Movement would be remembered for, they are by no means the only ones.
continue reading here

What Mr President should do

Image via Wikipedia

I have always felt Goodluck Ebele Jonathan might be the wrong sort of president for Nigeria.

The peculiarities of the Nigerian experience, I felt, are too diverse and complex to be left in the care of a man whose past experiences show that he lacks the kind of strong will leadership of a country like Nigeria so clearly needs.

My misgiving about the man and his antecedents was shared by many, but our numbers were not enough to keep him from winning a largely free and fair election.

Those misgivings of mine have proven to be justified, as he seems not to realise the enormous power he wields as president of a regional super power. He has tried to act, but only succeeds in appearing more helpless to stop Nigeria’s gradual slide to anarchy.

Truth be told, President Jonathan did not cause much of the problem he is saddled with now. It has been said that the man means well for the country and has himself said it is his desire to leave the country better than he met it. He has even, a first for Nigeria, declared that he will not run for a second term.

Perhaps the man may go on to become successful as a president all the same; perhaps his self-professed good intentions will become clear to Nigerians. While all that reside in the realm of speculation, what is clear is that Nigerians are largely unhappy with their president.

Even those who still hang on to the notion of him being a messiah with a divine mandate to rescue Nigeria feel Goodluck Jonathan is missing in action, though they believe his failure for effective leadership stems from the fact that he had surrounded himself with the wrong sort of people.

On Friday, January 20, 2012, Boko Haram fighters overran Kano and held the ancient city to ransom for hours on end. They killed hundreds, destroyed properties, threw the populace into a heightened state of panic and disappeared.

The attack was a new angle to the ever-shifting Boko Haram mode of operation, a new vista of the reach and bloodlust of a sect whose insurgency have been said to have started as a localised conflict between them and allegedly heavy-handed police officers.

While it would not be right to blame the president for the acts of a sect that has defied coherent definition and who have rebuffed every call for dialogue, it is right to blame him for not doing enough to safeguard Nigerians within the borders of a country that is the regional power broker.

Why him? Some may ask.

Well, because he is the president and the buck stops smack on his extra-large desk.

So far, Jonathan’s media managers have made a very big mess of the simple job of reading the mood of the nation and making sure the president understands it and articulates the right kind of response. Perhaps they misunderstand the issues themselves or are still caught up in that stale system of governance that underestimates the intelligence quotient of the average Nigerian.

Examples of these gaffes abound, whether we look at the erstwhile-celebrated presidential spokesperson Reuben Abati’s insult in the face of the Kano carnage (“seven people dead” he said, when the body count is in hundreds) or the attempt by Information Minister Labaran Maku and co to sell the fuel subsidy bullshit to Nigerians.

I understand what Goodluck Jonathan is facing, maybe just a little but that should suffice here. I know how difficult it is for one to function effectively as a leader when people who feel they are your superior intellectually and those who may have played big roles in ensuring your electoral victory surround you. It is worse when the wishes of those “powers” differ from yours and when hurting them may spell more trouble than you can handle.

The president needs to understand that no matter the route he took to get to where he is now, no matter the role played by any individual, he is there and that is the status quo. The nature of that position places him above everyone else, as he is the lord of the land until the next election. He wields enormous powers; he is in charge and should be seen to be thus. The only people he needs to answer to are the Nigerian people.

Going forward, the president needs to take more proactive measures, seek advice beyond the traditional channels.

He needs to, as a matter of urgency, suspend the Minister for Petroleum and ensure investigations into that rotten-through sector, which remains the mainstay of the Nigerian economy and the centre of corruption.

He needs to start a process that will overhaul the nation’s security apparatus, moving them from job creation agencies to the professional bodies they should rightfully be. Besides there are too many uniforms in Nigeria, all doing the very same thing.

Bottom-line, Nigeria is in dire need of a comprehensive overhaul, and Goodluck Jonathan should be man enough to begin the process. Let us for the first time in its history see Nigeria work right.

This is a version of my article on Jonathan's failings as a leader published by Daily Times Nigeria here
For the raw, uncut and lengthier version, go here

Related articles

• Is Boko Haram Enjoying Goodluck? (olaoluwabimibola.wordpress.com)
• why jonathan will struggle to combat boko haram (africaforinvestormouth.wordpress.com)
• North Nigeria police station overrun in sect attack (ctv.ca)

Mr Goodluck; please be the President!

Image via Wikipedia

I strongly believe that Jonathan's political foes and friends have a hand in what is currently happening across the country. I also believe that the president is making the job of those fighting against his government very easy. Checkout the fuel subsidy debate, where he lost the chance to get Nigerians fully behind him and battle graft to a standstill. Something that had he done, even if only that, would have made him one of the best presidents Nigeria ever had. 


Check out the BH rubbish; where he danced to the tunes of technocrats who kept lying to him that the Nigerian security agencies, already compromised by years of unchecked corruption, can effectively handle the insurgency their heavy-handed approach caused in the first place.


While I condole with the families of the hundreds of Nigerians sent to an early grave by Boko Haram and the Police, I say we do not forget where all these evil stem from: Bad leadership, corruption, poverty and a security force that is seen first as a job creation unit for jobless Nigerians, and where tribe and region plays an important role in ensuring one is recruited.


Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has to be a Nigerian president. He has to stand firm and exude confidence. He needs to wake up to his real responsibility. I don't believe an OBJ or a Buhari would be in this mess now. GEJ appears to respect people he thinks are better than him too much. One time he was differing to Adebayo, another time it was Obama, then Dangote, etc. He needs to realise that he is the PRESIDENT, THE NUMBER ONE. Every other Nigerian, no matter how rich or powerful, is under him and should be subject to his command. He needs to realise that he actually has the power and begin to use it sensibly.


These thoughts are from my facebook post

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