Fa’izah Atu Muhammad, a National Youth Service Corps member with the National Human Rights Commission, has made Nigeria proud by receiving an award as the overall best in an essay competition in Africa.
The essay competition organised by UONGOZI Institute of Tanzania for young Africans, titled “2023 Youth Leadership Competition” was competed by 30 African countries including the United Kingdom and India for young Africans in the diaspora.
The organisers through its website, https://uongozi.or.tz/news/announcing-winners-of-youth-leadership-competition-2023, had earlier revealed that Fa’iza Muhammad emerged victorious after defeating over 1,150 participants who made entries for the competiton.
The theme for the essay competition is “If you were an African Leader, how would you promote intra-African trade to unlock Agricultural potential in Africa?”.
During the 7th African Leadership Forum gala dinner, featuring an award ceremony for the 2023 Youth Leadership Competition winners, which held in Accra, Ghana, on the 25th of May, 2023, Muhammad was presented with the award and cash prize by the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo.
During the ceremony, Fa’izah read her essay to the world, which was evaluated by examiners across the globe before it was adjudged to be the best among others.
The positions of first runner-up went to Innocent Matekere from Tanzania; second runner-up, Sithandweyinkosi Sivela from Zimbabwe; third runner-up is Onwuka Dabeluchukwu Chiemelie from Nigeria, and the fourth runner-up is Manda Nixon from Cameroon.
The essay competition was judged based on originality, creativity, use of language, and appropriateness of the context of the theme.
It was also evaluated on the representation of the enormous variety of solutions and ideas on how to facilitate agricultural intra-trade within the African region.
The competition is set to encourage young Africans to freely exhibit their writing skills, leadership skills, and other inherent potentials in them. Fa’izah Atu Muhammad made Nigeria proud and won herself two thousand dollars ($2000).
She is a 22 year old Law graduate, of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, she is from Gulu-Vatsa community of Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State. She graduated with a Second Class Honours (Upper division).
Fa’izah expressed excitement over the award and thanked Allah for making her emerge victorious in the competition. She urged young Nigerians to be proud of the country.
“Look at me. I have not schooled outside the shore of this country, yet I came top of this continental essay competition. I am proud of my country, Nigeria, I am also thankful and proud of my parents for their guidance and sacrifice in seeing me through school”, she said.
The event was graced by the former President of Tanzania, and the Secretary General of African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, Wamkele Mane; as well as several African Leaders including two former Nigeria Presidents namely Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan.