The Board of Assessors of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMM) has adjudged multiple award-winning journalist, Wale Elegbede, as Nigeria’s Foreign Reporter of the Year 2021.
Elegbede’s winning entry, ‘Foreign Missions: Underfunding, Corruption Battered Nigeria’s Image’, chronicled tales of woes, disappointments, ill-treatment, corruption, and poor services rendered to Nigerians by foreign missions, which ought to be a second home to citizens in the Diaspora.
At the keenly contested 29th edition of the media award hosted by the Kogi State Government on Saturday, October 30, the entry published in New Telegraph Newspaper won the highly rated Dr Olusegun Mimiko Prize for Foreign News Reporter of the Year.
To win the coveted prize, he defeated the duo of Duru Ekele Innocent and Gboyega Alaka, both of The Nation Newspaper.
Elegbede had been a nominee of other categories in previous editions of the NMMA.
His entry in the foreign report category was one of the 1,050 entries received by the organisers for the available 50 award categories and he subsequently won the gong for the category.
He is a graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, the University of Lagos, and the Pan-Atlantic University, among others.
He has covered the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC, United States.