Kwara To Honour 50 Persons With Merit Awards

At least 50 elder statesmen, women, philanthropists and public intellectuals across all divides have been penned down for Kwara State’s lifetime achievement awards and posthumous merit awards.

The state government said the recognition is a “token of its appreciation” of the awardees’ contributions to the growth and development of the state.

The commissioner for communications, Abubakar Buhari said the awards come under 25 categories with each nominee picked on the merits of their strides or contributions in their fields.

He said the award ceremony will come up on Friday, December 23,2022.

“This award is a symbolic acknowledgment for all the awardees that the state truly appreciates them for what they have done or continue to do for their communities, their feats and exemplary achievements in their career paths and their contributions to the growth of this state and national development. It is a token of appreciation from the state government,” Buhari said.

“We want to add that this state is immensely blessed with great people — young, old, female, male, professionals, artisans, whether dead or alive. We are by this means showing our profound respect and appreciation to all, wherever they are, living or dead.

In other words, the distinguished nominees for the various categories of the 2022 edition are only representatives and ambassadors of these great minds of Kwara State origins. More and more of these great people will be formally recognised in the coming years for their huge impacts and footprints in the sand of time.

“Nominations for these awards were made by different subcommittees based on criteria relevant to each. There are at least three distinguished nominees for each of the categories except the lifetime achievements and posthumous awards. For the lifetime achievements Award, we have 25 distinguished personalities who have done so much to earn their stripes and are accordingly being honoured by the government of Kwara State. There are also 20 great personalities who were giants in their own rights during their lifetime and are to be honoured even in death.

“This list transcends all cleavages and goes to show the unanimous opinions of the panels that these were outstanding individuals with clear footprints in Kwara/Nigeria. Following the nominations in the other 23 categories, online voting has since begun to determine the winners for each category. Voting ends at 12 noon on Thursday December 22.

“Nominees with the highest votes will be announced at the award ceremony, which holds on Friday December 23rd at the Atlantic Event Centre,” he added