Musa, Omeruo, Aruna, others make 2018 NSA nominees’ shortlist

Unmissable Incentives, organisers of the Nigerian Sports Awards, NSA have announced the shortlist of nominees for the 2018 edition with Nigerian internationals, Ahmed Musa and Kenneth Omeruo, reigning African table tennis champion, Aruna Quadri and the Paralympic world record holder, Esther Oyema, making the cut.

At a press briefing held in Lagos on Wednesday, chairman of NSA panel, Dr Kweku Tandoh, announced nominees for the different categories including Footballer of the Year, Team Sports Person of the Year, Track and Field Star of the Year, Sports Governor of the Year and Sports Administrator of the Year to be voted for.

Other award categories to be voted for include Racket Sports Person of the Year, Basketball Player Of the Year, Para Sports Person Of The Year, Team of the Year, Discovery of the Year, Wrestler of the Year, Coach of the Year, Sportswoman of the Year and Sportsman of the Year.

Tandoh however noted that the remaining four categories of the awards; Journalist of the Year (Radio), Journalist of The Year (Television), Photo Journalist of The Year and Journalist of the Year (Print) would not be open to public voting, but all interested media professionals are required to submit any three works of theirs published or produced and aired (not more than 90secs) between November 2017 and November 2018.

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Deadline for all submission in these categories is Sunday, November 4, 2018.

Tandoh noted that the final selection of nominees were done by all award panel members after a careful scrutiny of the nominations entries received.

“We are quite excited that public interest on the award has grown significantly given the number of nominations received this year for the awards. For us, we have taken time to look at the nominees for the different categories and I can proudly say that the nominees selected for the categories deserve to be winners by all standard,” he said.

Executive Director of the Awards Programme, Mr Kayode Idowu revealed that voting for the shortlisted nominees in all 14 categories of the award which has since commenced will end on Sunday, November 11, 2018.

Idowu stated that public votes accounts for only 40 per cent of the total selection score while the awards panel retains the 60 per cent score to be awarded depending on the judging criteria.

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“This would ensure that while the public are allowed to participate in the selection of eventual winners through voting, the awards panel can still select the most deserving candidates for each categories. We do not want the voting process to become a popularity contest and this is why we introduced the 40/60 score formula,” he said.

This year’s Nigerian Sports Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Eko Hotel & Suite on Friday, November 16, 2018.

Meanwhile, coach of D’Tigress to the just-ended 2018 FIBA Women’s World Cup in Spain, Otis Hughley; reigning African and Commonwealth champion in 100m hurdles, Tobiloba Amusan and the Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr, are among nominees’ shortlist unveiled by the organisers of the annual sports awards on Wednesday.