The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, hereby announces winners of its 2nd EFCC Essay Competition, following a call for entries in August 2024.

The competition, aimed at promoting critical thinking and innovative solutions to cybercrimes, saw over 1,000 submissions from young Nigerians across the country.
The competition featured two categories: Using Technology for Social Good: How Digital Skills can Be Leveraged to Promote Transparency in Government as the thematic focus for the Tertiary Category, while the Secondary Category had Exploring Alternatives to Cybercrimes for Sustainable Development as its topic.

Following a careful review of all entries by a distinguished panel of judges selected from the academia, media, and civil society organizations, Pearl Okereke took the first position in the Secondary Category. Covenant Adesegun and Emmanuel Victor emerged the first and second runners-up respectively.

In the Tertiary Category, Adeshola Adejumo came first, while Favour Momoh came second, and Godwin Ajala finished third.

The winners will be honoured at the upcoming National Cybercrime Summit 2024, scheduled to take place on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The event will include an award presentation ceremony spotlighting the outstanding essays that highlighted innovative approaches to leveraging technology for transparency and combatting cybercrimes through sustainable development strategies.

The competition, the second in the series, underscores the EFCC’s commitment to engaging youths in the fight against cybercrimes while encouraging responsible uses of digital skills for social good.

The EFCC remains dedicated to mobilizing all its stakeholders, including youths, towards collaborative engagement in its ongoing fight against economic and financial crimes and other acts of corruption.

Visit www.efcc.gov.ng for more stories

Irate students at the College of Health Sciences and Technology in Jega, Kebbi State, have set the residence of the Provost, Alhaji Haruna Saidu-Sauwa, on fire and vandalised his vehicle.

The protest erupted over allegations that the college management extorted N23m from the students regarding index registration for 250 graduating students.

A source within the college who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity said the controversy originated from a newly introduced Public Health programme, which was initially affiliated with the Reproductive Health and the Public Health Association of Nigeria.

The source said the college merged the programme with the Department of Environmental Health to secure certification, leading to a demand for an additional N65,000 from each student for index registration, in addition to the N30,000 already paid.

ccusing the management of extortion, the students responded violently by stoning vehicles and setting the provost’s residence on fire.

Some of the college staff members fled the scene in fear before security personnel arrived.

Meanwhile, the provost of the school, Sawwa, in his reaction, described as “fictitious, baseless and mischievous” the allegations making the rounds that he had connived with a certain body in Oyo State to extort students of his college to the tune of N23m.

He denied the allegations that a certain course was introduced leading to payment of additional money by the students, which he described as the imagination of those spreading the story.

He said, “The said publications carried an unknown source who gave his own version of the story. I challenge the person to come clean in his allegations of student extortion and his claim of course duplications.

“Let me state here in categorical terms that I and the school management have no hand in the said allegations of course duplications and extortion.

“Our school operates the Single Treasury Account where all monies belonging to the school are paid to and no one has access to the account including me.”

He alleged that the protest was triggered by the anonymous source of those newspapers who didn’t balance their report but hurriedly went to press to satisfy their paymasters who he said had been working round the clock to pull down the college with outrageous claims and untrue allegations.

He further urged the students and the management to exercise restraint till the true cause of the student’s unrest was unravelled.

“Our stand remains we know nothing about the claim and allegations of the unknown source. We are happy no one was hurt and we are working with security personnel to nip in the bud the organisers of the protest which affected my personal car and other things belonging to the college. We distance ourselves from the unknown source of the newspapers.”

Meanwhile, normalcy has returned to the college after security agencies intervened and chased away the protesters.

Reacting to the incident, the Kebbi State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Nafiu Abubakar, stated that further details would be provided once information from the Divisional Police Officer in Jega was available.

Nigerian activist and social commentator VeryDarkMan has made a groundbreaking impact after launching his non-governmental organization (NGO), focused on transforming Nigeria’s public education system.

Within 24 hours, his initiative garnered overwhelming support, raising ₦21,620,780. The majority of contributions came from small donations (₦72-₦500), with notable contributions of ₦2 million and ₦1 million.

VeryDarkMan praised the community’s backing, emphasizing transparency and accountability. He criticized existing NGOs for mismanaging public funds and pledged open governance.

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