A 17-year-old student of Government Secondary School, Federal Housing Estate, Calabar, Master Ekuase Victor, has won the Rotary District 9142 Spelling Bee competition to clinch N300, 000 prize.
Rotary District is made up of seven states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River that participated in the competition.
Ekuase emerged winner after beating six other contestants while Precious Molokwu, 15, from Community Secondary School, Umuokpu Awka, Anambra State and Ezinne Agbom,17, from Izi High School Isieke, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, took 2nd and 3rd position respectively.
While Ekuase, an SS3 student was rewarded with cash prize of N300, 000 and a brand new laptop, Molokwu and Agbom were rewarded with N150,000 and N100,000 respectively with a brand new laptop each for their exploit.
The 4th to 7th positions went to Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Abia and Imo states and they were given consolation prize of N50, 000 each.
Speaking during the competition, the District Governor of the Club on Wednesday, Rotarian Nkemdili Nnonyelu, said the competition was part of the basic education and literacy of Rotary International Club to assist students.
He disclosed that one of their focal area was to advance international peace and understanding, alleviate poverty and promote education as well as all manner of illnesses.
“That is why we are doing spelling Bee Competition to excite the intellect of the young people by helping them become what they want to be in life.
“District 9142 comprises seven states namely Anambra, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Enugu, Akwa Ibom and Cross River.
“We have six districts in Nigeria and we are trying to help the students as the prizes won will assist them to mitigate the burden of hardship we currently have in Nigeria.
“Aside what they won today, they received N100,000 in their respective state where they were selected to represent their states at final stage.
“This is the first time we are organising this type of competition and we hope to make it bigger by next year,” he said.
The Chairman Planning Committee, Rotarian, Tessy Igweani, explained that at the state level, 20 schools were selected each from the seven states due to logistics challenge.
She added that each of the states had to select three students which gave them 60 students who competed at the state level.
“Those that came first in their respective states are the ones competing for final in Enugu,” she said.
She expressed happiness that the event was successful and thrilling with the student’s performances.
“It was all level playing ground for all the participants, as the competition was done in the open and when a child spells correctly or failed to get it, it was announced,” she added.
Responding, Ekuase said, “I am so excited and thrilled, it is like a dream come true.
“I worked and prayed for this. I have engaged in different spelling competition at state level but I have not been to a district competition like this,” he said.
Molokwu, while thanking the Rotary Club, said, “I am happy even though I did not emerge the overall winner, I am happy that I made my school and Anambra state proud by clinching 2nd position,” she said.
