A Veterinary student of the University of Ilorin, South-West, Nigeria, Ms. Esther Gbeja, has emerged winner of the Nigerian Communications Commission NCC National Essay Competition on Fifth Generation (5G) Technology.
This was announced at a prize presentation ceremony of the 3rd National Essay Competition in Abuja, Nigeria.
The essay competition with the topic: “5G Technology; Opportunities and Challenges”, received over 1,820 submissions from students in about 97 higher institutions from all across the country with four participants who emerged 3rd, 2nd and 1st place respectively.
The participants were Abdulkarim Nasiru and MarcPatrick Efeni, rewarded with the sum of N200, 000 each for 3rd position, Nosa Edosa, rewarded with the sum of N300,000 at 2nd position and Esther Gbeja, rewarded with the sum of N500,000 for coming 1st.
Youth empowerment
The Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Professor Umar Danbatta, said the commission is doing a lot to empower youths in Nigeria; this includes the Essay competition.
“The NCC is at the verge of auctioning Spectrum for the provision of 5G technology and we decided to take advantage of the moment by motivating and challenging our youth to be innovative and as resourceful as their counterparts in advanced countries.
“The controversies surrounding Covid-19 and 5G technology is now in the past,” he explained.
5G benefits
On the 5G deployment, Professor Danbatta reiterated that the federal government will gain 75bn from its spectrum auctioning in coming months.
“I want to reassure you that the economic benefits of 5G to Nigeria post corona virus pandemic will be huge, especially as almost all businesses and activities of government are migrating and offering their services online.
“5G will enable a new kind of network to Nigerians that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.”
According to the NCC Boss, Nigeria’s vibrant youth population stands to benefit immensely from the deployment of 5G as it will offer technopreneurs, technology enthusiasts, SMEs and Tech-start-ups platform to expand and network with other global players on a scale that has never been witnessed before.
He added that the auction was software-based, adding that provision has been made for manual auction should the auction software fail during the process.
The Chairman of the essay committee, Mr.Edoyemi Ogoh, said that the committee was guided by the Commission’s guiding principles of being fair and upright in following the criteria to determine the winner of the essay writing.
He affirmed that one of the objectives for the engagement of youths by the commission from tertiary institutions across the country was to challenge themselves in the understanding and problem solving imperatives as well as essential new technologies.
Ogoh noted that NCC was a key Stakeholder in the development and growth of the communications sector in the country.
“The Commission recognises the act of innovative thinking in growing the communications industry in Nigeria.
“The Commission engaged the youth to participate in tertiary institutions across the country to challenge themselves in the understanding and problem solving imperatives as well as essential new technologies, which is one of the objectives of the NCC in the essay competition,” he added .
The winner, Esther Gbeja, who spoke on behalf of other participants of the essay competition, thanked the NCC and urged Nigerians to support the Federal Government drive to deploy the 5G technology.
Gbeja also called on the NCC to come up with creating awareness programmes and involve professionals in the execution of 5G.
Nneka Ukachukwu
