By: Felix Ikpotor
Government Girls Secondary School, Abuloma, has emerged overall winners of the Education Champions League, ECL, organised for secondary schools in Port Harcourt.
GGSS Abuloma emerged winner and carted away the prize money of 10 Million Naira after defeating Seacrest Preparatory School, Aladumo International School and Enitona High School who placed second, third and fourth respectively.
Speaking at the event, sponsor of the competition, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs harped on the need for quality education to grow the next generation of leaders in the state and country.
Lulu-Briggs, said educating the next generation of leaders should be the paramount responsibility of government and all concerned persons for a better society.
He said there is the need for a secured future for the state and nation through qualitative educational system.
He said: “I need everyone of us and government inclusive to begin to understand the need to educate the next generation because as a government you have no greater responsibility than to educate the next generation”.
While noting that getting quality education is now expensive, Lulu-Briggs said the situation has widened the gap between the rich and the poor, calling on well-meaning individuals to support the government in that direction.
“We all must rise up to the pressing challenge of providing quality education for all.
“Our government must be supported, encouraged to succeed and to build in each and everyone of us, that sense of a common future because all of us desire thesame thing, to have thesame aspirations and so they must accord to everyone of us a fair chance of success in this race of life,” he stated.
While congratulating the winners in the competition, Lulu-Briggs regretted that premium was no longer placed on things that impacts most on the society.
He pledged to support the competition and expand it to local communities, saying; “We must encourage this competition because we don’t see any reason why the Big Brother shows will have so much prizes and intellectual competition like this don’t get as much attention”.
On his part, a former Executive Vice President, Upstream, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, of NNPCL, and co-sponsor of the competition, Engr Adokiye Tombomieye, said the competition has the capacity of grooming future leaders for the state and country.
He said: “With what I have seen here in the last two hours, I think there is hope for this country. What we have seen is that hard work pays. This children were given a task and we can see how well they have delivered and what that means is that if we also give them power, position of leadership, they can also do it better”.
He charged guests at the event to give back to their alma mater by sponsoring academic activities there and also encouraging them to be part of the Port Harcourt Education Champions League.
Earlier, one of the organisers of the competition, Wenenda Wali said the idea of the competition is to encourage togetherness and the reading culture amongst students of secondary age.
He said the organisers are determined to make the competition to get to the localities and called for greater support and participation.
Wali also said the competition is open to all schools in the state.
“We are determined to make sure this becomes part of our state and even the region if the resources allows.
“The whole idea is trying to get people to be together like we used to have in our days and we think this kind of competition would help us to achieve that.
“We will expand to make sure more schools take part and we are appealing to our friends who are graduates of other schools to encourage the schools they attended to be part of it,” he added.
Port Harcourt Spectator reports that the competition also had Five Million Naira for second position, Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira for third and One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira for the fourth placed schools respectively.
