See Winners of 2015 Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition

See Winners of 2015 Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition

Chisom Emeto, the student of Port Harcourt International School, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, who came first in this year’s Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition for Secondary Schools, and the 12th in the series, had not been born when Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican reggae star, sang his world-famous song, “You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try; You’ll succeed at last.”
But he epitomized the truth being passed across in that song recently when he tried and tried and eventually emerged the first among six other candidates that equally performed well in the essay competition titled: “The Nigerian Political Class and the Citizens Quest for Good Governance.”
Insight provided by Prof. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, the Chief Examiner of the essay competition shows that Emeto emerged the overall winner out of the 2,997 entries received for the 2015 competition held to mark the 70th birthday of the founder, Dr. Mike Okonkwo, the Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM). He showed “ability to engage the subject by showing how citizens have been culprit in entrenching bad governance,” she said in a press statement, “and then proposes what must be done to institute a political class that will deliver good governance.” An excerpt taken from his winning entry and later published on the first inner page of the programme booklet read: “For our failure to elect the right leaders, we have earned the reward of bad governance.”
To clinch the ultimate prize of  N100, 000, a laptop, a plaque, and three set of Internet-ready computers and a printer for his school, Emeto scored 73% at the first stage of the competition and 66% at the second stage. But in a chat with Education Review, it turned out that he applied the Jimmy Cliff song principle to succeed: he tried, tried, tried and tried.
“When I saw it online, at first I did not want to enter for it because since I won one in 2013 which was the Port Harcourt Book Festival Nationality Competition, I have entered for more than 20 competitions, including the 11th Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition held last year, but I did not win anyone. So I became discouraged. When it came up again this year and I saw it, I was in a dilemma as whether to enter for it or not. I was really troubled and I told my mum. She said that I should give it a trial. But I wasn’t satisfied. So, I met one of our teachers who happened to be here at this ceremony. She teaches English Language and French. It was that teacher who edited my work. I usually give her my work to edit, in the grammar aspect. She motivated me and said I should keep on trying, that one day my efforts would pay off. So, that was how I decided to enter for the competition.”
To his surprise, he came first in the first test, by scoring 73 per cent out of 100. But the litmus test came when he was asked to come for the second test aimed at finding out whether the candidates wrote the first essay by themselves or were helped by parents, teachers and mercenaries.
“I was at home one day when I received a text message that I have been invited for the second test,” he recalls. “Actually, I didn’t know what it was until we got to Lagos. It was when we got here that I found that we were to write a second test. Again, I felt discouraged because I was wondering why we should be subjected to a second test when we had done well in the first one. We started the test by 12pm on the dot. While we were in the hall, the Chief Examiner, Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo, told us that we have an hour to write on the topic: ‘Efficiency in Governance, the Nigerian Case Study’.”
“In fact, for about 15 minutes, I did not know what to write or how to start. I couldn’t imagine myself writing on a topic within an hour when the first one took me over a month. Meanwhile, other contestants had almost entered the second page. I felt discouraged and asked God to guide me, to make even if the third position. Although I eventually

wrote down something I wasn’t too happy with what I wrote. I wasn’t too sure that I did well. Of course, I used some of the ideas from my first essay test. But after the second test we took a group photograph and went home. Later I received a call that I had won. I was very, very happy that my efforts have been rewarded.”
From his experience, he passes on some message to his fellow students. “Failure shouldn’t make us to be depressed or downcast,” he said. “Rather, we should see it as a challenge to propel us to excellent height. Sometimes, we need failures in our lives to understand certain things. Thomas Edison, a renowned scientist, in the course of his research to produce electric light bulb, said that each time he failed he discovered the reason the electric bulb couldn’t light. It might interest you to know that he failed in his quest to produce the bulb 10,000 times. You can imagine someone failing 10,000 times and he said he had not failed but only discovered 10,000 ways to make his work better. Students when they failed should not see it as the end of the road but rather should ask thought-provoking questions like: why am I failing? What do I ought to learn from this failure? For some students who might have been entering contest like this and hadn’t won, they should learn from my experience too. I have entered for more than 20 competitions but I had won only two. There is something in my experience that should tell students not to give up but continue in their endeavour and one day, success will smile at them or come their way.”