Covenant University has emerged winners of the 2025 University Duel Challenge as well as winning the prize money of ₦4.5 million.
Gift Chukwuma, Alero Afinotan and Toluwani Kayode represented Covenant University.
Speaking at the prize presentation ceremony, the founder of the STEM Africa and Chief Executive Officer of Just Media Limited, Oladapo Ojo, said the idea of the competition came three years ago after ten (10) years of organising the same for secondary schools.
“Three years ago, we felt that it’s time to do something different in Africa. Prior to that, we’ve done over 10 years of similar competitions in high schools. We strongly felt that in Africa, there were other competitions for dancing, music and all kinds. Therefore, we felt that it’s time we took the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) competition to universities for two reasons: one, to encourage young people to take STEM very seriously, and two, to also encourage those who are in STEM to see that there’s potential in it.”
He explained that his outfit started by reaching out to the National Universities Commission (NUC). He, however, said the NUC informed them that they had no control over universities on such issues. This made them approach each university separately.
He further stated:
“We went to over 60 universities. There were some universities just trying to break the ice and part of the challenges we had was how to pick the students because you have brilliant students across different departments, so how to pick the best became a problem.”
He said they had to administer a test from stage to stage and Covenant emerged as the overall winner.
In his welcome address, the Registrar of the university, Mr. Igbam Emmanuel, reeled out some of the achievements of the institution. He said just recently, the Interdisciplinary Science and Research Institute ranked Covenant University as number one in Nigeria, number one in West Africa, Sub Saharan Africa and number three in the whole of Africa.
According to Mr. Igbam Emmanuel on the 2025 University Duel Challenge:
“We thank God for what He is doing in our institution, and we believe that very soon, Covenant University will be ranked number one globally.”
In his remarks the Director of the university’s Centre for Open and Distance e-Learning, Dr. Mayowa Agboola, said it was a great privilege that the university took part in the competition. Speaking on the process, he said the organisers did a CBT test for their students and over 100 of them partook and the top three of those students were picked by the organisers based on their scores. During the prize presentation proper, Dapo Ojo said the essence of coming to formally present the prize was to thank the University for allowing its students to take part in the competition.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Timothy Anake, explained that he saw the competition as something that should be encouraged and hoped that the organisers would get sponsors.
Three students from Bells University won the competition’s smart challenge prize, taking home two million Naira in funding for their innovative project.
They include David Iregbeyanose, Kafayat Lawal and Shalom Oso.
