The Chairman of the occasion, Professor Mrs. Grace Alele Williams, our special guest of honour, respected Chief Emeka Anyaoku Your Excellencies, my Lord Spiritual and temporal our distinguished Award Winners and guests. Let me join my Chairman, Emeritus Professor Umaru Shehu to welcome you all to this very special 17th Anniversary Awards.
Last year, during our sixteenth anniversary, the Foundation turned a search light on the youths with the aim of discovering young talented Nigerians, mentor, encourage and provide a platform for them to realize their maximum potentials. Among the Young Achievers are Nigeria’s Youngest Ph.D holders, Opeyemi Deborah Sodipe and Adeyemi Olabisi Temitope both 25 years, I understand that Adeyemi Temitope is here this evening. The Foundation also provided Laboratory Equipments and Computers to the best performing schools in WASSCE 2011, namely: Lumen Christi International High School, Uromi, Edo State and Air Force Comprehensive School, Agbani, Enugu State. Today, it is a great honour to have in our midst the 2012 best performing school in WASSCE and we congratulate the principal and students of Presentation National High School, Benin City for a job well done. As their reward, the Foundation will equip their computer room with a donation of Ten (10) Desktop Computers. Also, in line with our objectives to mentor, encourage and provide a platform for the younger generations to achieve their maximum potentials, the Foundation will donate a Bore-Hole Water System and Desktop Computers to a disadvantaged school nominated by the best performing school in WASSCE 2012. We are glad to announce that the benefiting school is Queen Apostles Nursery & Primary School, Shinge Lafia, Nasarawa State. We hope that this gesture will help in a small way to elevate the suffering of these young pupils.
At this juncture, we are happy to note that the Hallmarks of Labour Foundation Secondary School Scholarship Scheme started in 2008, recorded its first SSS3 graduands, all eighty (80) of them made us proud and many have been admitted into various universities. Anyhow, this is not an evening for speeches, Dr. Pat Utomi, our guest speaker for this evening is here to do that. Once more I congratulate our award winners and thank them for their numerous achievements from which Nigeria has greatly benefited.
Thank you and God bless!