Five Win NDDC GEMS Contest …Get N5m Each

Residents of Chika and Aleita protesting over outrageous March electricity bill and lack of functional electricity transformer in Abuja last Friday.

Five female secondary
school students have won the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC’s) scholarship to pursue their educational career up to tertiary level.
A statement issued Thursday in Port Harcourt by the Commission’s Head of corporate Affairs Unit, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, said the students from Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Ondo States emerged winners from NDDC-Sponsored “Girls in Engineering, Mathematics and Science (GEMS) Competition.
According to Amu-Nnadi, total sum of the award is N25million and each of the winners will benefit N5 million. The winners are Ayomide Adeyeye, Amarachi Orjuigo, Edidiong Frances Bassey, Blessing Jeremiah James and Grace Bassey.
The statement said, “Ayomide Adeyeye emerged over all winner at the competition’s grand finale, which featured 33 GEMS Finalists who were selected from three regional competitions organized by NDDC.”
It quoted the Acting Managing Director of NDDC, Mrs Ibim Semenitari as saying that the winners emerged from a rigorous elimination process that featured 2,880 girls from the region.
It further stated that the programme is aimed at promoting and encouraging female students who are innovative and research-minded to develop passion in disciplines such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
It expressed confidence that science and technology could become exciting in such a way that girls in the region can interpret science in a manner that can serve to resolve everyday challenges.
“GEMS is positioned to ignite a spark within every girl in the society to do great things for our society, the Niger Delta region, and for our collective future,” Semenitari stated, and called on corporate organizations including oil and gas companies in the region to partner with the commission to develop the girl-child in various “GEMS-related careers.”
In the statement, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, said the GEMS Programme provided the girl-child with unique opportunity to excel in male-dominated science disciplines.
It disclosed that the minister has also established a gender desk for women with objective of mentoring most importantly, the girl –child in primary and secondary schools.
The statement also quoted the minister as saying that,” the Niger Delta region is highly endowed with enormous human capital and natural resources which make it very strategic to the socio-economic development of the nation,” and promised that the ministry would partner with NDDC to develop women and the girl-child.
The minister, who was represented at the event by a Director in the ministry, Dr Nnenna Okoronkwo, urged the beneficiaries of the award not to relent in their pursuit of academic excellence.

Chris Oluoh