Architect clinches Ships & Ports annual essay competition award

Sarafadeen Mayowa Bello, an architect has emerged the best overall winner of the 2016 Ships & Ports Annual National Essay Competition, ahead of six others, who emerged winners in six other categories of the award.

Other five winners, who clinched the ACG Charles Edike Prize for Outstanding Essays include Bakare Moshood Oladejo; Daniel Philip Ayo; Nwoke Ifeoma Joy; Ogbagba Sunday, a student of Public Administration at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Abel Anna Ogechi, a corps member in Akwa Ibom State. Babatunde Omoju, a lecturer at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron, Akwa Ibom State, won the Princess Vicky Haastrup Prize for Research.

Speaking at the prize presentation ceremony in Lagos last week, Bolaji Akinola, CEO of Ships and Ports Communication Limited, said that the competition which has been existed for 10 years now, was instituted to help young Nigerians pick interest in maritime business and to enable them contribute intellectually to the development of the sector.

Akinola further advised the winners in the essay competition to take interest in the maritime sector. He also expressed appreciation to Dangote Port Operation and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Zone ‘A’, Lagos for supporting the annual essay competition.

Emmanuel Mayah, an investigative journalist who commended the participants for their interest in national issues, also charged them to keep contributing to national discourse.

“The fact that you participated in the competition leaves us with so much hope because the reactions of Nigerians to national issues have been disheartening. Maritime is technical and the more we become aware of it the better for us as a nation because after oil, maritime is the next biggest income earner and it is our duty to develop ourselves and benchmark what we do with what people do in developed nations,” he added.