Nigeria: Who You Be?: Nigeria’s Bloggers Award · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“Who You Be” is the 2009 Nigeria's Bloggers Award whose nominations started February 24th and will run until March 5th. The bloggers behind the award are four female Nigerian bloggers: Sting, Toluwa, Naijagirl and Geisha (a retired blogger). Who You Be has an official blog where nominations, voting and community building will take place.  The award is divided into Category A and B.  Category B has the usual award categories such as Best Personal Blog, Best Literary Blog, Best Fashion Blog, etc. Category B is a bit funny. Examples of this one are: Say What?! – Most confusing Blogger, Blogsville magician/Disappearing act Award – Blogger disappears for long periods without any explanation and FIRST!! – Always first on every blog.
Who You Be blog welcome message:
Welcome to the official blog page of the Naija Bloggers Award. This blog will serve as the official site where nominating, voting, interacting, and everything else will go down. The 2009 Naija Bloggers Award is Sting's baby, but she most definitely couldn't have done it without the help of Toluwa, Naijagirl, and the now retired Geisha.
We have come up with a whole bunch of award categories. However, we would like everyone to participate in this process and have as much fun as possible. We divided the award categories into two. Category A consists of the typical award categories, while Category B is not so typical.
Category A
Bloggers Choice Award – Naija Blogger of the Year
Best Personal Blog
Most inspiring Blogger
Best Student Blog
Best Religious Blog
……
Category B
I laugh in Japanese – Funniest Blogger
Celebutant – Most likely to become a celebrity off blogging
Drama King/Queen – (Over)dramatic blogger.
Hot and Sexy! – Blogger you think is hot in real life
Fire in my pants – Blogger you'd hook up with based solely on the content of their blog
Grandma/Grandpa Blogger – Seasoned blogging veteran who still updates frequently
Paparazzi Blogger – Always on blogsville
Here are the nomination and voting procedures:
Hello people,
Since this is the nomination round, you can nominate as many people as you like in each category. However when it's time to vote you can only vote for one person. Keep in mind that we are going to choose the top 5 nominees for each category. When u fill out the nomination survey, if the person you are nominating is not on the blogsville citizens list, please be nice enough to include the url. If you don't know the url, the name of the blogger will suffice.
Nominations are going to be for a week, so you have from today, February the 24th until Wednesday March 5th to nominate bloggers for Category A. After that we will announce the nominees for each category and voting for category A will begin.
In case you are wondering why the awards is divided into two parts, we have a lot of bloggers who are doing positive things in blogsville and they need to be recognized (seriously), this is where Category A comes in. That is not to say Category B is not to be taken seriously, but as you can see it's obviously so we can have fun.
Who You Be is also geared towards promoting new bloggers during the nomination period:
I would like to give newbie bloggers (6 months and under) a chance to be seen and heard. So if you qualify as a newbie and you are interested in putting up a post to introduce your blog, telling us why you started blogging and what you like or don't like about blogsville so far, please leave a comment with ur email address. The first three newbies to leave a comment indicating their interest will get to do it.
Nigerian bloggers are currently promoting and discussing Who You Be on their blogs. Miss Iyabo writes,
Na really “Who You Be???” …But how you sef go know if you never do stopover for Naija Bloggers’ Award’s website [Clix => Who You Be?] to sabi wetin dey!!!
To kick off the event, Nominations for Category A (Abeg the list too long for Miss Opeke to dey do secretary work of typing them all out…) opens today for the 2009 Naija Bloggers’ Award…remember to select who you’d like to nominate as your favorite blogger in each categories.
Ok, I know you are saying, “Wetin concern Mr. Agbero with overload…?”
Anyways, just go by and nominate like crazy…
Loy's opinion about the award:
Well, a good move from the ladies and should be commended. I think that the Nigerian blogging community is long overdue for an awards ceremony. The categories are quite ok, except that there’s none for Best Technology Blog, Best Rambling Blog, etc
Again, the announcement was very sudden (February 22, 2009), while nominations began February 24th. This perhaps didn’t give enough room for more bloggers to be part of it and also include other categories. I think there should be at least 2-4 weeks of publicity before nomination starts for these kind of awards.
Here’s a simple idea of what a Bloggers Award should look like. See SA Blog Awards 2008 and Bloggers Choice Awards 2008. However, it’ll be nice to see how the Naija Bloggers Award 2009 goes and I’ll be watching the progress in the next few days…