Encomiums As Corps Member Hosts Literacy Contest For Students

Winners of the LLC'18 contest and the convener Abdulrasheed Adeoye

Winners have emerged at the Grand Finale of the Legacy Literary Contest for secondary school students organised by a serving corp member in Ife South Local Government of Osun State, South-West Nigeria.

Event of Thursday 8th February, 2018 witnessed winners in three categories of literary contest, viz: debate, essay writing and spelling competitions in an event that was organised by Corper AbdurRasheed Adeoye.

Adeoye, who is also the Deputy Community Liaison Officer of the National Youth Service Corps in the local government serves as a teacher in the United Anglican Middle School, Olode in Ife South Local Government.

The Guest Speaker, Dr Shuaib Ajiboye Osunleke of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife encouraged the students to achieve their dreams meritoriously.

Ajiboye remarked: "You must realise that there will be challenges on the way, but you must realise the challenges are surmountable and should rather serve as perquisites to greatness. I also challenge you to ensure you attain a minimum of a first degree as a means of branding yourself for excellence.

"I must salute the courage of all the finalists for their endurance just as I must acknowledge the intelligence and the feat of the finalists in the debate competitions as they memorized over 650 words in their sojourn to the Grand Finale."

Winners emerged
The highpoint of the event was the emergence of Afolabi Babatunde Abdul Quadr, the main speaker for Mayoress High school, as a double champion - winning the best prizes in both the Debate and Essay writing competitions.

In the debate segment, Afolabi Babatunde Abdul Quadr (main speaker) and Adepoju Iyanuoluwa Felicia (supporting speaker) of Mayoress High School clinched the 1st position; Adedotun Olamide (main speaker) and Abiodun Deborah (supporting speaker) of SIAM Secondary School came second; Okunola Omolola (main speaker) and Ayinla Sulaiman (supporting speaker) of Benchmark International School came third.

In the Essay writing category, while the same Afolabi Babatunde Abdul Quadr (Mayoress High School) came first, Egunjobi Titilayo (Mayoress High School) came second; both Akinduro Tolani (Mayoress High School) and Khalid Taofeeq (Excel Crystal Innovative Model School) respectively occupied the third positions.

And in the Spelling category, first position went to Akinremi Olawale (New Hope Model Secondary School),
Akinduro Tolani (Mayoress High school) occupied the second position, and Olajide Pelumi (Best Foundation High School) came third.

Commendations
The Chief Host, Mr Ajayi Waheed, the NYSC Local Government Inspector acknowledged the hard work, dedication and dexterity of Adeoye and conveyed the special commendation of the NYSC Director to the worthy ambassador for making the scheme proud.

In the same vein, both the Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Musediq Ojuade who is the President of the Ifetedo Progressive Union, and the Father of the Day, Barrister Adeyemi Kehinde Olajide, the Zonal Inspector Education, Ilesha District commended the convener for a job well done and urged other corps members to emulate him by impacting on the society.

Convener's response
Responding, Adeoye a former Amir of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, University of Lagos branch commended the students for displaying excellence. While appreciating the participating schools for branding their students for excellence, he also commended the NYSC for giving him the opportunity to impact on his immediate community through this Community Development Project scheme.

He said the contest was part of his quest to brand and prepare the future leaders for literary excellence, particularly as they prepare for higher institutions challenges.

"The local government is geographically divided into two regions, Olode and Ifetedo. Therefore, the competition is to bring the Champions of these two regions to compete at the Grand Finale. Olode had 21 schools that participated at the preliminary stage while Ifetedo had  7.

"The intent of the competition involves training and branding the future leaders towards excellence by exposing them to the gains of being educated, in addition to sharpening their communication skills through debate, spelling and essay writing.

"It's been observed in Ife South Local Government that most of the students need more encouragement in their effort to proceed to tertiary institutions after secondary school. Hence, the Legacy Literary Contest is to wet their appetite on the benefits, the sweetness and the gains of education," Adeoye said.

The event, held at Civic Centre hall, Ifetedo was attended by over 200 students with many consolation prizes to encourage discipline and spirit of punctuality among the students.

The preliminaries and the semi finals of the competitions were held in November and December 2017 respectively.