Punch editor, Ogunseye, wins CNN award again

October 13, 2013 by Allwell Okpi

   

The editor, SUNDAY PUNCH, Miss Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye

The editor, SUNDAY PUNCH, Miss Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye, was on Saturday announced the winner of the Environment category of the CNN/MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award.

Ogunseye was one of the two Nigerians who emerged winners at the award ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa.

The other winner is Tolu Ogunlesi, a freelance journalist for Ventures Africa, Nigeria, in the Coca-Cola Company, Economics and Business Awards category.

Ogunseye, who started as an investigative journalist in 2006, had won the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Awards MSD Health and Medical category in 2011.

She holds a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from the University of Lagos; a Post-Graduate Diploma in Print Journalism from the Nigeria Institute of Journalism; and MSc in Media and Communication, Pan-African University.

She has won several awards, including the Nigerian Academy of Science Journalist of the Year 2013.

Ogunseye’s winning story, ‘The rich also cry,’ which was in three parts, focused on the impact of the gases released by a steel company, Universal Steels Limited, on the health of the residents of nearby Adekunle Fajuyi Estate, in Lagos.

The first part, ‘The rich also cry: A tale of deaths and diseases in a heavily polluted upscale estate,’ told stories of the residents’ battle with diseases that resulted from inhaling fumes from the steel company.

The second part, ‘The rich also cry: Killer metals in the blood’ detailed the results of blood and urine tests conducted on the residents, which confirmed the presence of killer doses of metals in their bodies.

While the third part, ‘The rich also cry:  When investment is a curse,’ looked at the links environmental policies, roles of government and Nigeria’s quest for foreign investment had with pollution of the estate.

Two South Africans, Msindisi Fengu and Yandisa Monakali of South Africa’s Daily Dispatch Newspaper, clinched the overall prize, with their report on a students’ hostel that looked like prison cells in South Africa.