A pupil of Vivian Fowler Memorial College for Girls, Ikeja, Lagos, Folatomi Alli-Balogun, has emerged the overall winner of the 2013 edition of the Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition for Secondary Schools across the country.
She scored 80 per cent to defeat other 2, 134 pupils who participated in the competition.
Its Chief Examiner, who is also a professor of English at the University of Lagos, Akachi Ezeigbo, who announced the result, said apart from scoring the highest mark of 80 per cent at the second stage of the competition, Folatomi, displayed an uncanny writing ability.
“Alli-Balogun writes with confidence and her ideas and diction are apt and quite appealing. Any reader of the work will detect surface modesty in her expression, but underneath this lies great sophistication of thought, which comes out effortlessly in her presentation. It is obvious that the skill she has shown in both stages of the competition is the result of her own effort,” she added.
Ezeigbo added that Mark Nwanbiankea of Lagos State Senior Model Collage, Badore came second with a score of 75 per cent, while Samuel Edet of Government Technical College Calabar, Cross River State got the third position.
For emerging the overall winner, Alli Balogun will receive a cash prize of N100,000, a laptop computer for herself and three sets of Internet-ready desktop computers with a printer for her school.
Nwanbiankea, the organisers said, would receive N75,000 personal cash prize and two Internet-ready desktop computers with a printer for his school, while Edet, who came third, would receive N50,000 for himself and a set of Internet-ready desktop computer for his school.
“A consolation price of N20,000 will be given to the two remaining finalists of the completion,” the organisers added.
Ezeigbo explained that the pupils were asked to write on “Overcoming the Nigerian Security Challenges: A Panacea for National Growth and Development.”
The statement released by the organisers stated that the winners would receive their prizes during the 14th Mike Okonkwo Annual Lecture scheduled for Lagos on September 5.
The competition was introduced as part of the activities to mark the birthday of Dr. Mike Okonkwo, who is the presiding bishop of The Redeemed Evangelistic Mission and to contribute towards improving the standard of education in the country.