Winners of the United Bank for Africa UBA Foundation National Essay Completion (NEC) have last Saturday 7th January 2023 respectively received the sum of One Hundred New Thousand Leones (NLe 100,000.00) as their various prizes.

The 2022 NEC competitors were provided with a topic on; ‘The Role The Played By Various Stakeholders In Improving Financial Inclusion In Sierra Leone’, which took them by the storm as none of the participants never know about. This was part of the essay process to get the best three winners after the entry level of the top twelve.

Assessing their respective works, were five distinguished judges drawn from top public tertiary institutions in the country including Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, who looked at participants’ organization, content  and mechanical accuracies.

Amongst the three winners at the final stage were sixteen years old Sierra Leone Grammar Senior Secondary School pupil, Jared Augustus Sankoh- Huges confirm name  who proudly won himself the sum of Fifty New Thousand Leones (NLe 50,000.00), Imadi Ngozi Faith went away with Thirty New Thousand Leones (NLe30,000.00) and Daniel Obot, went home with Twenty New Thousand Leones (NLe20,000.00) respectively.

Addressing participants whom he described as winners, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of UBA Sierra Leone Mr Usman Imam Isiaka informed all that the National Essay Competition is an initiative of the UBA Foundation which started in 2008. He disclosed that NEC started in Sierra Leone in 2020. He said since then to date the bank has been organizing the essay competition in order to encourage pupils to take their school works seriously.

The UBA/CEO said that the NEC initiative borders around the Corporate Social Responsibility of the bank, for which participants and their parents gave round of applauds to the UBA Group Chief Executive Officer of UBA Foundation, Bola Atta in Nigeria.

Mr Isiaka said the distinguished winners will be entitled to do their internships with UBA-SL and upon their graduations they have the chance to work with the bank.

He profusely thanked partners including the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. He reassured the pupils that the top three winners will be provided with grants to pursue with higher studies at their choices of African universities. Mr Isiaka said that the UBA Foundation has encouraged parents to allow their children to participate in the National Essay Competition.

Participants in the 2022 NEC were presented with one brand new laptop each, bag pack along with certificates of participation. Speaking to journalists shortly after he received his awards, the 2022 NEC top winner Jared Augustus Sankoh- Huges said; “I never expect this and I thank God for the inspiration. It is hard work that has taken me to this level. Hard work pays. I therefore want to encourage my co-participants to continue to work hard”. He said hard work has brought him this far, adding that what actually made him emerged as winner was research and his personal interactions with previous winners of NEC. Sankoh-Huges vowed that the opportunity accorded him by the UBA Foundation to study in his choice of African university is also a challenge thrown at him by the bank. He thus encouraged friends not to be afraid of taking part in any academic contest and thanked the UBA Foundation for the support.