PUNCH’s Head of Investigations, Tessy Igomu, was on Saturday awarded the West African Journalist of the Year in the sixth edition of the West African Media Excellence Awards.

Igomu was among the 25 finalists selected by a jury from 952 entries received from 16 countries across the sub-region.

Winners of the 10 categories and an overall winner were unveiled at a ceremony held in Accra, Ghana, on Saturday night.

Igomu was announced the winner of the Environmental Reporting category with her entry titled, “We can’t breathe! Ogun community chokes under Chinese recycling plant’s fumes.”

In the story published in 2021, Igomu chronicled the activities of a Chinese recycling company, Yoyo Resources Recycling Limited Company, and exposed how pollution from the company took a toll on the health of some residents of Orimerunmu, a community in Ogun State.

Shortly after the publication, the company relocated from the community and compensated some of the victims of the pollution.

The report also earned Igomu the West African Journalist Award and a $2,000 cash prize.

According to the organisers, Media Foundation for West Africa, the Nigerian journalist set the record as the first female to win the coveted award.

“Apart from being the first female journalist to win the respected award in the six-year history of the event, Tessy Igomu also became the second Nigerian to become the WAMECA Journalist of the Year.

“The first was Samad Uthman of Dataphyte, who shared the 2021 prize with a Ghanaian, Kwetey Nartey, last year,” the organisers added.

Reacting to this feat, Igomu said her award-winning story was a product of determination.

“I’m a daring person. When they say ‘don’t go there,’ that’s where I want to go,” she told the cheering crowd in the packed auditorium.

In a clarion call to female journalists, she said, “You can shatter the glass ceiling. You can do anything. Investigation is my calling, that is what I do, and that is what I eat. It is in my blood.”

The Nation’s Olatunji Ololade won the Human Rights category; Premium Times’ Oladeinde Olawoyin clinched the Business Reporting prize while the Anti-Corruption reporting category was won by a freelance journalist, Adeola Oladipupo.

Other winners of the night included Burkina Faso journalists, Nabole Ismael and Basseratou Kindo; Ghanaian journalists, Kwatey Nartey and Seth Boateng, and Guinea Bissau’s Darcico Barbosa.