A Nigerian based in the United Kingdom, Ijeoma Ibijoke Jummai McDougaall (nee Iheme), has been announced winner of the prestigious Cheshire Woman Award for 2023 for bettering lives of the less-privileged in Nigeria and Britain.

In a telephone chat yesterday with The Guardian, McDougaall said she was nominated alongside other performing foreigners.

Cheshire, according to Wikipedia, is a county in northwest England, known for its rural villages of half-timber and local red sandstone buildings and for its Industrial Revolution heritage, with links to neighbouring Manchester and Liverpool. Its county seat is Chester, founded as a Roman fort in the first century A.D. and home to Roman walls and a cathedral displaying 1,000 years of architectural history.

The award focuses on people doing great things.

The Nigerian, while acknowledging existence of ‘Real House of Cheshire’, observed: “The calibre of women in the room and the kind of things they do.”