Lagos wins 5th Lafarge Africa National Literacy Competition

Lagos State, represented by Kehinde Lawal and Idowu Ayomikun has won the 2018 edition of the Lafarge Africa National Literacy Competition (LANLC).

Lawal and Ayomikun won the competition on Thursday at a well-attended grand finale event which held at the Civic Centre in Lagos, beating 10 other pupils from Nasarawa, Kano, Rivers, Ebonyi and Gombe.

Presenting prizes to the winners, the Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Africa, Michel Puchercos applauded all the participants acknowledging all the students who participated at every stage of the competition.

He said: “Apart from the cash prizes received, those who take part in this competition go away with skills indispensable for building a sustainable future. We recognize the importance of better literacy skills in helping individuals succeed in life. The Lafarge Africa National Literacy Competition builds capacity and contributes to developing this much needed skill in public primary school students across Nigeria.”

The competition was launched in 2014 as a flagship Corporate Social Responsibility intervention by Lafarge Africa and has since grown to become a national initiative impacting children and teachers across the country.

One of the special guests at the event, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka commended Lafarge Africa for taking up the initiative to urgently bridge the country’s widening literacy gap. Prof Soyinka, who presented the keynote address titled “Bridging the literacy gap together”, expressed delight that some states known for very high illiteracy levels were represented at the grand finale. “It shows that the battle against illiteracy is not lost, it can be won,” Soyinka said.

The winners expressed gratitude to Lafarge Africa, Ovie Brume Foundation, Oando Foundation and others involved in making the literacy competition a success.

So far more than 500,000 primary school pupils in 886 schools across 544 local government areas have benefited from the Lafarge Africa National Literacy Competition.

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Education in charge of Basic Education across the country, has recognised Lafarge for its outstanding contribution to the development of literacy in the country’s public primary schools.