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By Gabriel Dike
Seven students who emerged winners in the 2024 Mike Okonkwo National Essay competition and their schools were showered with their prizes.
The secondary school students were awarded the prizes after the Annual Lecture held in Lagos to mark the 79 birthday of Bishop Mike Okonkwo, the Presiding Bishop of TREM.
At the ceremony, three secondary schools, whose students emerged first, second and third were also presented with sets of Computers.
In the first round, the title of the essay the students wrote was “Nigeria’s Pathways: Diagnosis and Prescriptions” while in the 2nd round, it was on “Protest Against Misgovernance: The Gains and Pain”.
In the first round of the essay, Flourish Olaoye of Christ the King International School, Gbagada, Lagos scored 71 and 75 in the 2nd round to obtain 73 percent and clinched the first position.
Olaoye was presented with a cheque of N500, 000, a trophy and a plaque. Her school was presented with a set of computers.
The 2nd position went to Femi-Lawal Nora of Chrisland High School, Lekki. She scored 65 in the first round of the essay, 64 in 2nd round and obtained 64.5 percent
Femi-Lawal was presented a cheque of N250, 000 and a plaque; her school got a set of computers.
A student of Corona Secondary School, Agbara, Ogun State, Olayimika Esther, placed 3rd position with 62 point in the first round, 60 in 2nd round and 61 percent.
Olayimika was presented with a cheque of N150, 000, a plaque, and a computer set for her school. While the four finalists received consolation prizes of N50, 000 each.
In their report, the Chief Examiner, Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo, said the committee received 551 essays from secondary school students nationwide.
According to her, the committee used quality control instruments such as Goggle search machine, Turnitin plagiarism detector and their own eagle eyes to scrutinize each essay for plagiarism, copyright infringements, unhedged A1 assistance and other integrity infractions.
Said she: “The feedback we got enabled us to weed out 341 essays that showed direct evidence of infractions. Apart from the eight participants invited to the second round and validation round of the competition, others fell below our quality threshold of 50 percent.”
Ezeigbo explained that the three winners thought about the issues involved in the topics within the mental orbit of their age. She said they expressed their thoughts in the way that exceptional students of their age would do.
“Their mastery of English language structures marks them out as meticulous students with potential. We must encourage them, as Bishop Mike Okonkwo is doing, to sharpen there thinking and critical skills, by acknowledging their contributions and rewarding their efforts, ” she added.
Prof. Ezeigbo commended Bishop Okonkwo for giving the committee the opportunity to be part of the epochal process of talent development of young people in the country.
