CITATION OF Eric Dumo Idaerefaa

WINNER OF THE SPORTS REPORTING PRIZE

Eric Dumo plies his trade at the Punch. Before then he was with The Week magazine (2005-2008) before crossing over to The Scroll Magazine (2009-2011), and Sun Newspaper (2011-2013). He joined the Punch Newspaper in 2014.

A 2012 sociology graduate from the University of Lagos, he also holds a 2005 National Diploma in Mass Communication from Yaba College of Technology.

In picking his work, Hooliganism: The Dark Side of Nigeria’s Football League, as the winner, the judges note that the work “focuses on one of the mockeries deriving from the absence of sufficient rigour in sports development, with continued observance of a sports calendar without serious efforts to address the dislocations to the integrity of its processes.

The report examines not just the physical danger posed to players and lovers of the game but its long term negative impact on dwindling sponsorship, which in turn translates to sports underdevelopment”.

By scooping the prize for Sports Reporting today, Eric Dumo is proving his versatility as a distinguished journalist, having won a DAME in Development Reporting in 2015.