It is with great honour that I stand before you today to present our plans for the 2013 Best of Nollywood Awards, an event which, through hard work, consistency and transparency, has become the most sought after awards in the Nigerian film industry. When we started the Best Of Nollywood Awards five years ago, there was a vacuum as the existing movie awards had been rested due to absence of sponsorship.
Aside that, we felt strongly that those who constitute Nollywood are doing immense Public Relations for Nigeria without commensurate recognition for their efforts. Thus, we birthed BON with a mission to celebrate the true stars of Nollywood.
The journey has been rough and tough; we have been buffeted by myriads of storms and stumbling blocks that could have sent us scampering back to our comfort zone but we have remained resolute and resilient and focused because we believe fervently that Nollywood, as influential and impacting as it is on the socio-economic milieu of Nigeria nay the world, should have a befitting reward system whereby the achievements and hard work of our movie stars and stakeholders would be properly and glamourously celebrated.
Today, five years after we started, we can confidently beat our chest to assert that the Best of Nollywood Awards is the longest running reward platform for movie stars in Nigeria.
In the last four years, the Best of Nollywood Awards has not only given out plaques, we, as organisers, have worked hard and impressed it on some of our sponsors to give monetary support to our winners. In 2010, courtesy of Sunlight, our sponsor, Omoni Oboli and her husband spent an all-expense paid week in Dubai after she won the Best Actress of the Year award. Same for Izu Ojukwu who got a First Class return ticket to any destination of his choice in the world for winning the Best Director of the year courtesy of Qatar Airlines.
Our vision and dreams are huge and we believe that we shall get to a stage where the Best of Nollywood Awards would be a global event with the help of Corporate Nigeria.
This year, the BON Awards takes a new dimension as it shall be hosted by the Delta State Government under the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, because of his philosophy to build Delta State beyond oil and to make it a first choice destination for avid tourists. The awards ceremony will hold at the prestigious Dome in Asaba. Before the main awards, a dinner shall be hosted by the Governor of Lagos State, His Excellency, Babatunde Raji Fashola on November 2nd for nominees.
Let me use this opportunity to express our gratitude to members of the press for the huge support that you have given the Best of Nollywood Awards these past years and to say unequivocally that without you, we won’t be where we are today. Like Oliver Twist, however, we want to use this opportunity to ask for more support and to ensure that this year's event is bigger than every other one that has been done. We also express our gratitude to Promasidor, the manufacturers of Onga and the Media Reach team for all the support that they have given us in the past years.
Finally, as we count down to Nollywood's biggest event of the year, the BON Awards starts from today. We promise all those who would have the opportunity to be in Asaba that this year's award shall be the biggest so far and a lot of hard work is going on daily to ensure that it meets international standards and everybody's expectations.
Let me use this opportunity to say thank you to a veritable actor and producer and one of Nollywood's iconic figures, the Honourable Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Delta State, Mr. Richard Mofe Damijo, who has taken BON up like his baby and has been working extremely hard to ensure that we have a hitch-free and exciting ceremony that would linger in our memories long after the event.
Thank you all for listening and we hope to see you in Asaba, come November.
God help us all.
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