Senior Vice Chairman/Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP, Azu Ishiekwene, has won the Columnist of the Year Award in the 30th edition of the Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) 2022, held in Lagos on Sunday.

Mr Ishiekwene, fondly called Azu, beat Abimbola Adelakun and Tunde Odesola both of PUNCH, to win the award in an entry fielded by Vanguard, which among other media houses in Nigeria and abroad, publishes Azu’s syndicated column weekly.  

The NMMA Board is chaired by advertising guru and former CEO of Lintas, Dele Adetiba. The award in this category is named after Alade Odunewu, one of Nigeria’s all-time best in punditry. Mr Odunewu was famous for his wit and clarity of language.

In a statement by LEADERSHIP signed by the Managing Editor, Raliat Ahmed-Yusuf, the newspaper said, “The Award showed once again a consistency in the quality of  Mr Azu’s public commentary, which has hardly dimmed over the years.”

Azu, who has won this NMMA award at least four times in the past in his three-and-a-half-decade career, won his first prize in journalism 34 years ago when he clinched the Babatunde Jose Prize for the Best Graduating Print Student of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos.

He is one of Nigeria’s most syndicated columnists, including in Peoples Gazette, and is also published on platforms in Ghana, Argentina, South Africa, Europe and the United States.