I remember telling my friend that I was waiting for just one thing—one spark, one moment of excitement—before 2025 ends. Just one thing to light something in me again.

And well…yesterday, the 10th of December, 2025 brought it in. I was announced as the “Winner, Best Feature News Story” at the Mass Communication Creatives Award (2025), hosted by the Mass Communication Alumni Association, UNILORIN.

It came as a shock because even though I believed I submitted something nice,

(a) I’m self-aware enough to know there are other amazing writers who may have submitted even better work, and

(b) at the beginning of this same month, I received a congratulatory message for a scholarship I applied for—only for my excitement to be cut short by a follow-up email saying their system glitched and sent “Congratulations” to everybody instead of only the selected winners. 😹😭

I won't lie, that scholarship incident humbled me violently. 😹😭

So when I walked out of the test hall yesterday and someone told me my name had been called at the award ceremony (I genuinely planned to attend, but if I tell you how chaotic my Wednesday was from the moment I woke up, till the time I lay my head down, you will understand), I just put my hands over my mouth in shock and sweet surprise.

But it was real, y’all.

It was actually real. 🥹

While I was in the test hall clicking on option B — Landsteiner and Wiener discovered the Rhesus system in 1937—my name was being announced somewhere else as “Best Feature News Story”.😭🥹🩷

An award.

A certificate.

And a cash prize.

All for words I wrote out of honest frustration with our country’s reality.

What shocked me the most was that I wasn’t even there to receive it myself… yet my words were standing in that room, speaking louder than I ever could. 🥹

And that part made me emotional.

Because sometimes, as writers, we get so used to pouring our hearts out that we forget people are listening  and sometimes, they are moved.

I am genuinely grateful.

Grateful that the story found a place.

Grateful that the message landed.

Grateful that the fire I wanted for 2025 didn’t just spark, it lit up.

Thank you, MCAAUIL.

Thank you, AMCOS.

And thank you, December… for coming with softness this time.

And to you reading this, thank you for making this a safe space to create, to speak, to share.

🩷🩷🩷