Egejurum Onyedikachi shares his experience winning the gold medal at the International STEM Olympiad Grand Final in Rome.
He is the best in the world in the Mathematics Primary Category.
He is a genius.
About twenty years ago, a story broke that shook Nigeria at that time. It was the story of Okija shrine in Anambra State.
The incident occurred in 2004, while I was on an exchange programme at Oxford University, news came that a shrine in our own Anambra State, Ogwugwu Okija, had been found holding the remains of dozens of people. The country recoiled in shame.
A classmate at the Oxford programme asked me to explain it, and as the only African in the room, I defended Nigeria with all the optimism of a young reformer.
My friend Segun Adeniyi took to his column in Thisday in a piece titled, Okija A Show of Shame. I wrote a rebuttal to Segun published on the back page of ThisDay, titled "Okija, Not a Show of Shame," where I first made this argument: that the scandal was never really about the corpses.
It was about something harder to admit, that a largely Christian, largely educated society still trusted the enforcement of a shrine more than the enforcement of the state.
The shrine was not superstition standing in the way of a modern economy. It was the legal system the modern economy had failed to provide.
Two decades on, that argument has only deepened, and it is the conviction I took to Nnamdi Azikiwe University: Africa's future is, before it is anything else, a trust question.
When institutions cannot enforce their own rules, loyalty does not disappear. It migrates, to the shrine, the strongman, the vigilante. The state does not collapse with a bang. It is quietly abandoned.
The day we redirect to our own institutions the faith our people once reserved for the shrine is the day Africa converts its growth into development, and its potential into a life its citizens can feel.
This is the kernel of my lead paper titled Governance as the Foundation for Africa’s Future: Building Institutions That Convert Growth into Development
The full lecture is now on my website.
https://t.co/GGdiwk8juW
Osita Chidoka
1 July 2026
@omoobaayoade@ChuksEricE Did you ask Tinubu such questions before he became President and don't tell me you didn't vote him
That's how you folks roll and lie up and down
E don reach Obi turn your preek don dey stand
Akpakomiza is attacking one man.
Dave Umahi is attacking one man.
Julius Abure is attacking one man.
Bayo Onanuga is attacking one man.
Kenneth Okonkwo is attacking one man.
Adams Oshiomhole is attacking one man.
The entire Establishment is attacking one man.
Wike is promising Rivers votes.
Adeleke is promising Osun votes.
Okpebholo is promising Edo votes.
Soludo is promising Anambra votes.
Akpabio is promising Akwa Ibom votes.
Dave Umahi is promising Ebonyi votes.
Dapo Abiodun is promising Ogun votes.
Sheriff Oborevwori is promising Delta votes.
32 governors are promising Heaven & earth.
They renew the promise every market day. It must be wonderful to walk in his shoes.
Our man is on everyone’s lips. You will think he snatched their wives. Do you know what it takes for one man to put Aso Rock & the entire Establishment under constant pressure?
To the point of forcing grown men to renew their pledges on camera every market day?!
He is not your mate jor. If e easy, try am! 💪💪