Yabatech student wins art competition, gets .1m cash gift

A fine art student of Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech), Ogunsami Femi Philemon was recently awarded N100,000 cash gift for winning the arts competition organised by Minimie Company.

The student was rewarded for his ability to create a sculpture with Minimie chinchin wrap.

The marketing manager for campus and youth Pan Nigeria for Minimie, Jacintha Uzomah said the competition was aimed at helping students accomplish their dreams and harness the talents embedded in them.

“We have so many hidden talents, nobody to encourage them. Maybe their parents want them to study a different discipline and the person has another discipline in mind. You can see someone studying Biochemistry and has zeal for art. This is our own little way of encouraging talents, whatever it is, you can be the best. We sponsor from top to finish of the project,” she enthused.

The head of department of fine art, Dr. Ndubuisi Chinyere, said the concept is to discourage waste within the campus and encourage the college community to put the waste materials to good use.

“The biggest challenge we have on campus is student littering the environment. We really want to discourage that, let the students know that most of those things they used to litter the environment can actually be turned to wealth.

“So that is why we encourage this project for the students to use wrappers of chinchin to create a sculptural paste by way of recycling,” she stressed.

Philemon expressed delight for being the winner of the competition. He said, “l am excited to be the winner, I feel like doing more, it is actually a good start for me and I appreciate God for this feat. A lot of people participated in this competition and I joined just to project my idea to the school and to the society, at least if you want to be great, you start from somewhere.

A lecturer in the fine arts department, Mr Gabriel Sunday while shedding more light on the competition said, “It started in the month of November last year. It was just for fine art department alone. It ended with Philemon who showed interest. By the time he presented his sketch, the organisers saw that it was the best. He was picked and that was how he became winner of the competition.

“The unique thing about this is that we tried to pick up all kinds of waste materials littering everywhere within and outside the campus. So what we did was to see how best we can use the waste materials and transform them into an art piece, so it’s more like a waste to wealth idea.” Sunday added.