THE HUMOUR AWARDS was founded by Uche Dominic. Creating an award for the comedy and humour industry started as a conversation in an aeroplane, between Uche Dominic and Fisola Odukogbe in 2019. Both men were colleagues at HIP TV, an urban entertainment and lifestyle TV channel in Lagos, Nigeria.
They were on a flight from Lagos to cover a comedy show in Abuja when on sighting a popular comedian, Uche Dominic decided to share his dream of creating an award for the comedians in Nigeria who were given little recognition despite their enormous contributions in the entertainment industry. Fisola Odukogbe then told Uche Dominic that he had also nursed that dream and it would be a nice idea to actualize it.
Right there on the plane, Uche Dominic told Fisola that the show would be tagged “HUMOUR AWARDS” and would not only recognize comedians but every humorist in Nigeria. Fisola agreed and both men decided to do a research on whether there was any show with such names in Nigeria. They also both agreed that there is a need to get a few friends with the same vision on board once they returned Lagos.
In Lagos, Uche Dominic spoke to his long time close friend, Batife Perez who he had shared the idea of creating an award for comedians in the past. He reminded Perez about the dream again and told him to come on board as it was time to actualize it. Uche Dominic later shared the dream with Stephanie Uchekanu who agreed to be part of the project.
The first official meeting to discuss the idea of the comedy award show took place at a bar in, Ikeja, Lagos. It was at this meeting that “THE HUMOUR AWARDS” was adopted as the name of the award show.
On Uche Dominic’s suggestion, it was also agreed that a company that would organize the award show would be founded with everyone present at the meeting becoming a board member in the company.
Months after the first meeting, HUMOUR FACTORY LIMITED was founded. With Uche Dominic as Project Director, Fisola Odukogbe as Production Director.
With a reshuffling of roles, Batife Pere as Director of Marketing and Strategies, while Stephanie Uchekanu became the Media Director.
ABOUT THE TROPHY
The smiling face represents fans who are made happy by the jokes of comedians and humorists.
The trophy of THE HUMOUR AWARDS was first drawn in a rough sketch by Uche Dominic, and was inspired by an image Batife Perez had sent to the board. It would later be modified by the board after deliberating on several sample sketches submitted by artiste and sculpture, Akinrisimi kode Matthew (jahsees) of WHO IS NEXT AWARD COMPANY who went on to design and create the trophy.
The trophy was created with fiberglass resin and auto base gold plated paint. It stands at 1ft tall. It is an image of a smiling face held by a hand. The smiling face represents fans who are made happy by the jokes of comedians and humorists, while the hand represents the comedians and humorists who work so hard to uplift the spirit of their fans, putting smiles on their faces
