By Ismail Auwal
The organisers of the Arewa Community Awards, a social media group operating mainly on Facebook, have recognised SAHELIAN TIME’s “excellent journalism and development in Arewa.”
Sahelian Times and The Daily Reality newspapers made the list of those recognised in the 2021 edition of the awards.
The Arewa Community Awards is one of the most prominent social media awards in the northern Nigerian dominated cyberspace.
The 2021 winners include a diverse array of organizations, individuals, and groups.
The winners were selected for distinguishing themselves through their innovative approach to solving some of the region’s toughest and most pressing challenges or being a source of inspiration for the upcoming generation.
The 20 awards span across the best writer of the year, best entrepreneur of the year, a best legal advocate of the year, among others.
The convener MA Iliasu told SAHELAIN TIMES that, Arewa Community Awards is an initiative aiming at giving recognition to the efforts of the people who have dedicated their talents, expertise and time to bring meaningful discourses to the people.
He added that “the recognition, as the initiators believe, serves as encouragement for the online contributors.”
” In 2020, Mallam Ibrahim A. Waziri, one of the elders of Arewa online community and a very dedicated public intellectual, concluded that the initiative is a major leap forward that may counter the side-effects of social media.”
“People would prefer to do good and be awarded than otherwise. Likewise the emerging generations making their onto the platforms would discover an organized setting that’ll influence them to join positive trends,” he noted.
According to the convener, the awards are determined by popular votes – which is a challenge for people to be attentive and categorical to the contents they consume and their authors.
“While some few are awarded base on excellence- a challenge to aspirants to do better.”
Some of the awards are named after the founding fathers of Arewa Society and the people that follow them with goodness, he told our reporter.
Barr. Abba Hikima was also recognised for “his selfless determination towards ensuring justice” in northern Nigeria.
The award selection process was said to be transparent and objective.
