Fides Media Living the Faith
By Ikeugonna Eleke
Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano, has awarded scholarship to six Anambra girls who recently bagged gold in a Technovation Competition in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, USA.
Obiano who gave out N1million to each of the six girls, announced that the state would train them in the university to first degree level.
The governor made the announcement while receiving the girls at the Governor’s Lodge, where dignitaries converged in the colours of the girl’s school, Regina Pacis Model School, to honour them.
In awarding the scholarship to the girls, Obiano shunned foreign colleges, including countries whose delegations to the competition were humiliated by the girls, who had written to the state demanding to take the girls on scholarship.
Obiano while receiving the girls said, ‘We all adorned the colours of the Regina Pacis Model School today as a mark of honour to the school. ‘These girls dazzled the world with their talent recently with their outstanding brilliance and we are proud of them. I sent them forth to America, and gave them the needed encouragement and today they are here as winners of the award.
‘The girls have broken old stereotypes that blacks are inferior. The girls have shown that our people, given the right platform, can perform. The average Anambra man is a fearless man. I charged them to go do us proud and they did.
‘They have shown that the black man is capable of many things. Anambra has become a home of enviable success,’ Obiano stated.
The governor said he was particularly happy that the talent of Anambra people were finding their feet under his watch, and that he would continue to celebrate all those who made the state proud, starting from the girls.
He said a convenient date would be fixed in which all Anambra indigenes who had represented the state in competitions outside the country would be honoured.
The reception for the girls; Adaeze Onuigbo, Vivian Okoye, Promise Nnalue, Nwabuaku Ossai, Jessica Osita and Miracle Igbokwe; saw their mentors, Mrs Uche Onwuamaegbu-Ukwu and the principal of the school, Rev Fr Vincent Ezeaka, also being awarded N2m each too.
Several dignitaries, including Senator Victor Umeh, Mrs Bianca Ojukwu and Speaker of Anambra State Assembly, Rt Hon Rita Maduagwu, all eulogized the girls for their exploit.