Winners of the 2021 UBA Foundation National Essay Competition have emerged. This was disclosed in a ceremony held at UBA House, Marina, Lagos.
Miss Eziaku Esther Enwereuzo, 15, of His Grace High School, Enugu, clinches the N3 million education grant to attend any university of her choice in Africa. The grant becomes effective immediately she gains admission to the university. She was announced the winner at the grand finale of the competition and award ceremony held at UBA House.
Congratulating the finalists for their excellent performances, Bola Atta, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, UBA Foundation, commended the winners of this year's National Essay Competition for their exceptional brilliance.
Her words, “Every student who sent in an entry is a winner. To be confident about your writing skills and ambitious enough to enter a competition to further enhance your educational path is laudable.
“For those that did not win, I would say do not be discouraged. Take it as a challenge to perfect your writing skills and enter for the competition again next year.”
Esther, an SS3 student and youngest child of her parents defeated Nduka Chukwubikem, a 17-year-old student of Oxfords international School, Abia State and a 15-year old Hajarat Abdulwahab, a student of Addy Basic School, Kano, to second and third prizes, respectively and also nine other finalists from among over 7,000 students who submitted entries nationwide.
While Esther is rewarded for her effort with N3 million scholarship grant to study at any university of her choice in Africa, a trophy, laptop, certificate of merit, and a school bag, Chukwubikem and Hajarat on their part won N2.5 million and N2 million scholarship grants also to study at their choice universities in Africa respectively and equally received a laptop, certificate of merit, and a school bag each. Surprisingly, all of them are science students and from private schools.
Esther, who was accompanied to the event by her mother, Mrs Joy Chika Eziaku, a civil servant, told Newsmen that winning the competition was really tasking as she burnt night candles to read and research to put down the winning essay.
They wrote on “If you could set up an entrepreneurship business, what will it be and how will it impact Africa.”
While commending UBA Foundation for providing the platform, she posited that she has gained additional knowledge about contemporary issues in Africa and that hard work and commitment certainly paid off.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of UBA Plc, Mr Kennedy Uzoka, said that UBA is particularly happy to be using the platform to boost reading culture and encourage healthy competition among students, noting that the annual event has produced hundreds of winners with many today contributing to national development.
He promised that the bank through the competition would continue to support the education of Nigerians who want to study in any of the African universities.
This year’s edition is tagged 11th in the series. The UBA Foundation National Essay Competition, which is open to all students of Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria, is a follow up on the Foundation’s Read Africa Initiative and aims at providing a competitive platform to develop the intellectual and writing abilities of senior secondary school students in Nigeria.
The competition has been held annually since 2011 with students being challenged to write on different engaging topics.
Comments
Post a Comment