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Adegbite wins Wake Up the Giants reality show

By Florence Utor
14 December 2022   |   3:42 am
Veronica Adegbite of St. Graags College, Oshodi, Lagos State has won the Wake Up the Giants reality show. She got N1 million in the literary show. Competitors were drawn from the academics for stage two winners across six Southwest Nigeria states. The audience experienced spoken words at its best. Adegbite’s poem on domestic violence won…

Veronica Adegbite of St. Graags College, Oshodi, Lagos State has won the Wake Up the Giants reality show. She got N1 million in the literary show. Competitors were drawn from the academics for stage two winners across six Southwest Nigeria states. The audience experienced spoken words at its best.

Adegbite’s poem on domestic violence won her the coveted prize. Tajudeen Aishat Oyindamola of Ibadan City Academy, Oyo State, took the second prize of N500,000, with her piece on child marriage, while the third prize went to Olusegun Shalom Motunrayo of Zion Baptist High School, Osogbo, Osun State. The fourth position got N100,000 and the fifth and sixth took home N50,000 each.

Organised by Sastoma Empowerment Foundation (STEFO), with support from Sifax Group, the show is the first academic reality event in Nigeria. It aims to promote issues on education in Africa, support the educational drive for the less privileged, widows, orphans and missionary’s children.

Chief Executive Officer of STEFO and creator of the show, Dr. Stella Ebuetse, said: “As a tutor of Language and Literature for over 30 years, the discovery of few but significant challenges in education sector, especially in academic competitions, relating to my field gave birth to Wake up the giants, Nigerian youths got brains.’ it is a literary reality show set to prove that beyond physical talents, beautiful faces, and physical strength, African youths got brains.”

According to Ebuetse, the drastic fall in the standard of education, the dwindling number of learners offering literature owing to laziness in reading the few prescribed textbooks, the poor level of learners communication and writing skills, the extinction of literary clubs and activities in our schools, students non-challant attitude to academic competition, and further innumerable deficiencies in our educational system, call for drastic action among well-meaning Nigerians.

“Most worrisome is the fact that currently in Nigeria, we have over a 100reality and talents hunts but none is focusing on this poor, nagging communication/reading challenge.

“The competition is going to be in three stages: Senatorial District level, State level and the third stage being the tasks for the competition,” Ebuetse said.

She enumerated what they aim to achieve with the competition, to include drawing government’s attention to the dearth of English and literature teachers in schools; awakening reading culture among youths, revitalising literary activities in secondary schools; discover, build young creatives and talented writers.

“Good books and good writers are gradually going out of circulation in Nigeria among others, we need to something fast,” she concluded.

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