UBA Foundation Opens Entries for National Essay Competition

UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has announced the opening of entries for the 2015 edition of its annual national essay competition.


Entries for the essay competition opened yesterday and will close on November 13, 2015. The essay topic for this year is “What matters most to you in life and why.”

The Group Managing Director/CEO, UBA Plc, Mr. Phillips Oduoza, who was represented by the Deputy CEO, UBA Africa, Mr. Emeke Iweriebor, said the essay competition is UBA’s modest contribution to educational development in Nigeria and across Africa.

He added: “As a pan-African financial services group with operations in 22 countries, we aim to impact on the countries we do business through the three main anchors of education, environment and social empowerment.”

He urged students to take the national essay competition seriously as it provides a massive opportunity for them to change their lives for the better. He also dared students to dream big and read and write extensively.

Also speaking at the event held in Lagos on Wednesday, the Managing Director/CEO, UBA Foundation, Ijeoma Aso, announced that the Foundation will start receiving entries from eligible participants in senior secondary schools in Nigeria. The briefing was attended by students from different secondary schools in Lagos. Aso, said the essay competition provides an opportunity for students in senior secondary schools in Nigeria to win prizes in the form of educational grants.

The first prize for the UBA national essay competition is a N1 million educational grant for the winner to study in any African university of his or her choice. The second and third prizes are N750,000 and N500,000 educational grants respectively.

Aso explained that the competition is part of the Foundation's initiative to promote creative and analytical thinking in senior secondary students in Nigeria and is a follow up on the Foundation’s Read Africa initiative, which promotes reading culture among students through the reading and free distribution of Africa literary classics in secondary schools. The national essay competition is also held Ghana and Senegal.

Entries received for the competition will be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges made up of professors from reputable Nigerian Universities, who will then shortlist 12 best essays for further assessment.

A second round of the competition will involve the 12 finalist who will write a second supervised essay from which three best essays will be selected.

Also, Director, UBA Africa, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Bola Atta, Director, urged students to see the national essay competition as a opportunity to lay a foundation for success in the future.