Africell doles out Le5m for inter- schools quiz competition
Freetown, June 16 (SLENA) – The multiple Award winning telecommunication company in the country, Africell over the weekend dished out the sum of five million leones (Le5m) as sponsorship package for the third Inter-secondary schools Quiz Competition organized by the Nigeria Students Union in Sierra Leone.
Speaking at a press conference which was held at the Nigeria High Commission, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Mr. Joe Abass Bangura said his company is excited in providing a sponsorship package of Le5m cash and meeting the cost of radio and newspapers advertisement, branding of the venue and the provision of a Public Address System to the organizers of the third Inter-secondary school competition as they continued to support education in the country.
Their support to education,Mr. Bangura went on, has been through the provision of scholarships to students, including students groups and has also been providing special close users group packages for students.
He said his company believed without doubt that a nation’s value is based upon the function of quality human resource base and that a major tool in building high quality human resource base is through relevant quality education.
He furthered that in Sierra Leone, various statistics have pointed to the drop in the quality of education. This, he maintained, explained their excitement to be part of the quiz competition which ultimate aim is to stimulate academic competition among students that could intimately exposed and drive their creativity.
He cited great entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg and the late Steve Jobs, the Apple Founder who got their business ideas in their various universities and that today their companies have touched the lives of people globally.
He concluded that since the commencement of their company’s operations in the country they have without interruption provided free on-net airtime from 2am to 5am and that student are known to have made use of that opportunity by calling each other to work on their school assignments and other issues related to their academic work.
Giving a brief background about the Nigeria Students Union, the Head of Chancery to Sierra Leone, Yele Onafalujo commended Africell for it tremendous contributions towards the country in terms of education, sport, poverty, amongst others, adding that he is very pleased with the company.
Speaking on the history of the Union, the Head of Chancery said that Nigeria students around the world have a primary motive which is to achieve success in their various academic pursuits with a burning desire to uphold the true image of their country, Nigeria.
He said it was upon this notion that the Nigerian students in Sierra Leone formed the Nigerian Student’s Union-Sierra Leone to serve as an umbrella body for all Nigerians students in universities, Polytechnics and other higher institutions in Sierra Leone.
He went on to state that the Union was formed in 2010 by a young dynamic Nigerian, Dr. Olawala Babalola with the unyielding support of a colleague, Omabowale Olopade who noticed that the perspective, welfare and ability of Nigeria students were being ignored as well as their views and needs which were neglected and forgotten whiles their voices were often under-represented.
In response to those challenges, the Head of Chancery said they came up with the idea to form a body that will focus on identifying, confronting and eradicating the challenges they encountered.
Mr. Onafalujo maintained that the aims and objectives of the Union is to foster unity and bridge the gap between Nigerian students in Sierra Leone by providing a forum for Nigerian students to come together and contribute their skills and ideas towards the development and improvement of Nigeria. He highlighted some of the achievements made so far by the Union which among them he said is the promotion of educational standards in Sierra Leone.
President of the Nigerian Students Union Sierra Leone, Peter Ogunlowo said that his Union believed that education and competition are two universal ingredients of all human cultures.
Education he said education is the bedrock of success whiles competition he said is beneficial to human development.
The SU President said that the growth and development of any country is evident in the vast knowledge embedded in the educational pursuit of her teaming youths and teenagers.
Alimatu Fofanah
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