By Stephen Ubanna
The United Bank of Africa, UBA plc, described as one of Africa’s biggest and most solid Money Deposit Bank, MDB, under the close watch of Oiver Alawuba, appears set to put smiles on senior secondary school students, SSS, as it opened its portal for entry into the 2022, National Essay Competition, NEC.
Informed sources told The Value News that since it opened the NEC, portal, there have been a mad rush by hundreds of Senior Secondary School Students across the country to beat the Friday, September 14, deadline uploading their essay to the UBA portal.
The Topic for this year’s essay Competition, according to Financial analysts very instructive: Academic Staff Union of Universities, ‘’ASUU Strikes have often cost Nigerian Students time, Advise the Nigerian government on how they can reach an agreement with ASUU, to improve tertiary education in the country’’. This is a topic that was said to have been chosen for Nigerian students to write on while students from other African countries were given different topics related to their own country.
The NEC, according to a statement, issued by the Bank, Public Relations Unit, ‘’is targeted at senior Secondary Students across the country’’. An insider informed The Magazine that ‘’it is part of the Bank’s Foundation Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, of Educational initiative aimed at ‘’promoting the reading culture in schools and encouraging healthy and intellectual Competition amongst Secondary Shoo Students in Nigeria. And the African Continent in general.
The Bank had made it clear to those that cares to listen that ‘’to qualify for tits NEC, ‘’the Candidates must be secondary school students, and not an undergraduate. The Candidates must ‘’submit their valid contact information Name, Age, School, Address of school, a copy of birth certificate and National Identity, ID, or International Passport data page.
The Candidates, areir also expected to give their residential and email Addresses. The Candidates’ application to participate in the UBA, NEC, could only be considered to have been completed if the applicant upload a handwritten essay of not more than 750 words on the chosen topic for the Competition on the bank portal.
But there is a caveat for the participating students. Perhaps to avoid disqualification, the Bank had urged the students to keep strictly to rules as ‘’all incomplete or duplicate entries will be disqualified, meaning that the NEC, is for serious minded students only.
The selection procedure according to the Bank starts with entries for the Competition which will be reviewed by distinguished panel of Judges drawn from reputable Nigerian Universities, mostly Professors, ‘’to shortlist the best essays for further assessment’’.
The second round of the essay Competition, as contained in the Bank Statement will involve ‘’the twelve finalists that would make the list to write a second supervised essay from which the three best essays will be selected as the overall winners from the Competition.
The student, whose essay, would be adjudged the best is expected to go home with a mouth watery sum of N5million education grant to any African University of his or her choice , while the second and third runners up would get educational grants of N3 million and N2.5 million prizes respectively.
Recall that in the 2021, edition of the NEC, one Eziaku Esther Enwereuzo, a 15 year-old student of His Grace High SCHOOL, Enugu, south east Nigeria, had emerged the winner at the grand finale of the competition and award ceremony at the UBA House, Marina. Note that the 2022 edition of the NEC, will be the 12th in the series that would be organised by the Bank, which have Tony Elumelu as its Chairman.
