Organisers of the Nigerian Uncelebrated Awards (UNA) UK have finalised the list of the 57 awardees who will be honoured in the 2017 event due to take place at the Mayfair Banqueting Suite in Chadwell Heath on September 30.

Now in its second year, the event will be a classy gala dinner that will attract community leaders, guests from Nigeria and high commission officials, where ordinary Nigerians in the UK who are excelling in numerous fields but have generally been overlooked in the past, will be honoured

Among the 57 who  will be honoured at the event are community leaders, faith workers, those who run charities, teachers, councillors, fashion designers, printers, entertainers, doctors, pharmacists and disc jockeys.

The awardees will all be presented with plaques and certificates on the night.

Ronke Udofia, the chair of the UNA awards sub-committee, said: “It was a very painstaking process chosing 57 individuals from the hundreds of nominations that were submitted but we wanted the process to be transparent, so went the extra mile. We scored each nomination individually and picked the top 57 with the highest scores based on our criteria.”

“Unlike other awards ceremonies, with the exception of industry events such as the Nigerian Events Awards UK, that only celebrates practitioners within the Events Industry,   UNA recognises ordinary working Nigerians in the UK like bus drivers, teachers, care workers, train conductors, etc and not just public figures and VIPs. Our first criteria is that to win a UNA award, you must not have been awarded elsewhere, so we had to check each of our 171 nominees individually to make sure they had not got an award elsewhere.”

Bola Ganiyu, the chair of UNA’s events management sub-committee added: “We want to assure all awardees and their guests that UNA 2017 will be unbelievable as we have secured the hall until 4am in the morning. The night will be a mixture of awards, entertainment and fun and the cuisine will be unique as we will have a variety of Nigerian dishes that have not been served at other events before.

“For just £50 for standard tickets and £75 for VIP tickets, guests will be treated to an evening they will never forget. We have got a lot of high profile VIP guests such as the acting Nigerian High Commissioner in the UK, Mr Simon Ogah, chair of the House of Representatives Committee on the Diaspora Rita Orji, the special adviser to the president on diaspora affairs Abike Dabiri-Erewa and the Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, coming over from Nigeria and we are looking at a mixture of entertainers from Nigeria and the UK diaspora.”

Members of the public who want to book tickets to attend the event are urged to visit the website http://www.uncelebratednigeriansawardsuk.org

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