Deborah Onitilo of New Chrisfield College, Ikorodu, Lagos, has emerged overall winner of the 2018 Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition for Secondary School students in Nigeria.
Deborah Onitilo emerged winner after scoring 63 percent in the first round of the competition and 52 percent in the second round.
The second position went to Miss Ashley Davidson of Vivian Fowler Memorial College for Girls, Ikeja, who scored 62 percent in the first round and 49 percent in the second round to emerge second.
Master Ferdinand Esigbone-Omagbemi, a student of Roshallom International Secondary School, Lagos, scored 60 percent in the first round and 47 percent in the second round to claim the third position.
For emerging overall winner of the contest, Deborah Onitilo receives a cheque for ₦100,000, a personal laptop computer, a trophy and a plaque, while the school will get three sets of computer and a printer.
The first runner-up, Davidson, receives a cheque of ₦75,000, a plaque and her school will get two sets of computer and a printer. For emerging the third position, Esigbone-Omagbemi receives a cheque of ₦50,000, a plaque and his school receive a computer set. The other winner will get a consolation price of ₦20,000.
Announcing the results, the Chief Examiner, Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, said:
“After a painstaking scrutiny, we adjudged only four as suitable for invitation to the second stage of the competition, which is basically a confirmatory procedure to verify the integrity of the original submission.
The content and structure of the four entries, we must say, are just sufficient to enable the candidates to score grades within the ‘B’ range. The implication of this is that the verve, creativity and imagination that we have seen in past performances are beginning to whittle down, even though enthusiasm to take part continues to rise.
As the Internet and android phones have become basic infrastructures of knowledge production and transmission, our children must now be made to understand that there are regulations concerning the extent to which they can claim materials domiciled in those spaces of learning. They need to be taught early enough how much they can extract from existing materials without infringing on copyright rules.
