By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The 2017 edition of the 9mobile Photography Competition is coasting to the climax with the announcement of the three finalists and the Voters’ Choice winner.
The 9mobile photo contest is a talent development initiative by the Nigeria’s most innovative and youth-friendly telecommunication company.
The competition serves as a platform to discover, reward and empower budding photographers to fulfil their passion and capture compelling images that celebrate the Nigerian heritage.
Prizes will be awarded to the winner, runners-up and Voter’s Choice winner during the winner announcement scheduled to take place in Lagos on Friday, November 3, 2017.
The three shortlisted finalists as selected by the judges are Amanda Ihemebiri, for ‘The NestOil Tower’; Oluwaseun Otitoola, for ‘Fragment of CMS Bookshop Building’; and Taiwo Omotosho, for ‘Lines Side by Side.’
For the voters’ choice category, Ikenna Ogbenta, who had the highest number of votes online, emerged winner for his image ‘Skies and Scrapers.’
The trio of Ihemebiri, Otitoola and Omotosho were selected from the list of ‘Top 100’ by a jury based on quality, creativity and relevance of their entries.
The jury comprising Hakeem Saalam, Kola Oshalusi and Kunle Awolowo – who are all accomplished international photographers – will carry out a final review of the shortlisted images and thereafter announce the winner and the two runners-up.
On the other hand, Ogbenta emerged winner of the Voters’ Choice having earned the highest number of votes during the online voting for his entry, ‘Skies and Scrapers’, a slanted image of one of the 1004 Estate towers at Victoria Island, Lagos standing against a beautiful blue sky.
Commenting on how the competition has fared, the Director of Brands and Experience at 9mobile, Mr Elvis Ogiemwanye, expressed delight at the high level of interest and participation which the competition generated this year, and commended the participants for the creativity and quality of their entries.
“We are very excited by the volume of entries that were received this year. The 2017 9mobile Photography Competition was keenly contested, and this further affirms 9mobile’s leadership position in actively engaging our subscribers, especially the youth by enabling and encouraging them to express their talents.
“At 9mobile, we are totally committed to the growth of Nigeria’s creative industry by promoting talent development across arts, literature, science, sports and entertainment segments. We have and will continue to explore ways we can support talent mining to better position and empower our subscribers to give them the needed edge to succeed,” he enthused.
Mr Ogiemwanye added that, “We are glad that entries received for the 2017 edition of 9mobile Photography Competition are impressive both in terms of creativity, quality and relevance. The judges have done an excellent job in choosing the three finalists. I congratulate the Voters’ Choice winner, Ikenna Ogbenta, whose entry got the highest number of votes online.
This year’s edition of the annual 9mobile Photography Competition kicked off on August 7 with a call for entries, which closed on September 11.
Aduragbemi Omiyale 
Adedapo Adesanya