37 state winners vie for scholarship at NNPC quiz competition finale

State winners of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) quiz competition, from 15 public schools and 22 private schools, will compete for a scholarship award of N300,000 per session.

Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC spokesperson, who made this known, described the overall performance of the exercise as excellent.

The first leg was conducted on July 22 in all the 36 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

Ughamadu said 19 winners scored 80 per cent and above in the exercise, adding that 13 of them had scores that ranged between 60 per cent and 79 per cent, with the five others emerging with marks below 60 per cent.

Receiving the result of the 15th edition of the competition at a briefing in Abuja, Maikanti Baru, NNPC group managing director, said a one-off grant of N100,000 will be issued to the state winners while the scholarship of the overall winner will be redeemable upon presentation of evidence of admission into tertiary institutions.

“As a Corporate entity, we are passionate about impacting lives positively through our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects. The annual quiz competition is a flagship project for NNPC that was designed to encourage science and technology education among the youth for the purpose of lending a hand in building future manpower for the Oil and Gas Industry,” Baru said.

In 2010, a past winner of the competition emerged 2nd in a contest involving others from the organisation of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) member countries, and Austria.

The yearly competition started exclusively for participants from the Niger Delta in 2000 but grew into a nationwide exercise in 2001.