Kwara State Gov­ernor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, has been chosen as winner of the HOG Governor of the Year Award.

Also, Babatunde Fowler, chairman of Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) and Nnamdi Ezeigbo, chair­man of Slot Systems, will be honoured at the awards ceremony scheduled for May 25 at the Summit Event Centre, Alausa, Ikeja, as winners of the Man of Excellence and Businessman of the Year awards respectively.

According to the Manag­ing Custodian of the awards, Rupert Ojenuwa, the board selected Ahmed as Governor of the Year after considering his massive investment in infrastructure, human capital development and health fa­cilities.

"When we visited Kwara State, we were shocked by the massive development we met on ground. Most proj­ects undertaken had reached completion, while some were nearly completed. What was the most commendable is the governor's attitude and con­tribution to development of human capital," he said.

Speaking on other award­ees, Ojenuwa said: "We are not leaving the entertainment people out. Some of them are doing very well in their cho­sen fields and it is important to note that Nigerian mov­ies and music are exported to other parts of the world. So, we have looked into the industry and we have picked about three of them to hon­our. Mike Ezuruonye will be honoured as Nollywood Star of the Year, Sean Tizzle as Hip Hop Star of the Year, while the famous blogger, Linda Ikeji, will be receiving the Entertainment Personal­ity of the Year (award)."

Explaining the essence of the awards inaugurated in 2010 by Chief Alex Akinyele, former minister of Informa­tion, Ojenuwa said: "It is important that we, in the midst of our many challenges, do not miss the opportunity to be happy. The HOG Awards is that platform upon which men and women of character, hard work, who have over­come the greed of self-cen­tredness to infuse their best to make a place better than they met it, can be celebrated and this year, His Excellency, Abdulfatah Ahmed and our other awardees epitomise just that."