Divine Toruemi, 1st Prize Winner 2013
Devine Toruemi’s story is about how she rescued someone from a sinking boat. Late one evening, she boarded a passenger-laden boat to cross the river to a village called Mgboudohia in Port-Harcourt. The boat was overloaded with passengers being the only available means left to pick passengers for the evening who are readily disposed to sea transport than road because of its cost effectiveness and time saving benefit.
After covering a considerable distance, the passengers realised there was a leakage and water was entering into the boat. Suddenly, the boat gave way under the weight of the passengers and it began to sink rapidly.
There was chaos in the sinking boat as passengers panicked and cried for help, but no one could hear them from the middle of the sea. Devine quickly dived into the river and swam to safety.
However, after grasping few long breaths, she instinctively swam back towards the boat and reached out to one passenger who was struggling frantically for survival and assisted her to the shore. Devine was able to successfully save a life. It was later confirmed that the ugly incident claimed 49 lives.
Mohammed Kenubu, 2nd Prize Winner 2013
Mohammed and his mother were at the New Road, Sabon Gari Park, about to embark on a journey on the day of the infamous park bomb blast that shook the entire nation.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Blessing who strapped her baby to the back, as well as other passengers headed for Benue State were standing at the ticket sales point when the explosive went off. As a result of the impact she fell unconsciously to the ground and by the time she regained consciousness her baby and luggage were missing.
In the middle of the chaos, Mohammed also lost contact with his mother, while also scampering for safety; he saw when Mrs. Blessing fell unconsciously to the ground with the baby strapped to her back. Mohammed instinctively ran back to the direction of the baby who was panic-stricken and seriously crying, he realised that if the baby had been left for another few minutes, unthinking passengers who were also running around for survival may mistakenly run over the baby.
Mohammed ran out of the park along with the baby and headed home where he found his mother covered in shock, after frantically searching for him in the crowd without success.
David Adekunle, 3rd Prize Winner 2013
On the 22nd of February, after returning from school, David was home alone washing the dishes when he heard the sound of the entrance door open. He quietly peeked from the kitchen and saw three unknown young men In their living room. David waited to observe their intentions and soon realized that they were robbers. He quietly watched as two of those robbers headed for their bedrooms while one stayed back in the living room, looking out for the others. The two came out with laptops and other valuable items carefully kept in a sac.
On their way out, they also stopped and picked other household items such as the DVD player, satellite decoder and N95, 000 belonging to David’s father. David trailed the men quietly as they left the house. At a point, the three men took separate directions; David decided to trail the one with the loot who boarded a bike on getting to the main road. David also stopped a motorbike and asked the rider to go after the looter, until they got to Dutsen Kura, where the robbers reside.
The thief went into his house, completely unaware that he was being followed. David carefully took note of the house and headed to his father’s work place where he narrated the entire story to him. David’s father wasted no time in getting the police informed, they raided the bandit’s house and arrested them and retrieved all the stolen items.