We have our winners for Week 42 of the cmonionline essay competition.
Michael Ogbonnaya, Chukwuemeka Oluka, Stephen Ayilegbe and Ebube Ezeadum will share the N30,000 cash prize this week.
The entries were so good that a judge donated N50000 in support of our endeavour and stated that “these writers are truly getting better as they write. I must commend them”. Thank you Winnie Oyigah, may God replenish your coffers.
The entries from Michael Ogbonnaya and Chukwuemeka Oluka topped the opinion essay category.
Online Dating In Nigeria: What We Need To Know: In his usual manner Michael delivered a structured piece that crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s. After his introduction, the reader was brought to speed on the topic immediately with a concise definition. He then deployed a mix of exploration and illustrations to marshall his interrogation of the issue from different perspectives. The clincher for me is what I always advise opinion writers to do. Always make suggestions! This essay provided content, analysis and entertaining prose that made for an interesting read. Congrats Mike, you have won N10,000.
Online Dating: Nigerians, Shine Your Eye! Chukwuemeka did justice to the subject, such that even a reader who doesn’t know what it is would have got educated by the time he is introduced to the Tinder Swindler movie. He also adhered to the instruction to examine Online Dating in Nigeria. There were no grammatical or punctuation errors. Congrats Chukwuemeka, you have won N5,000.
Online Dating Issues in Nigeria: In Stephen Ayilegbe we have an encourageable young man who has a good command of the English language. He is keen to learn and improved on his last essay. As this is a competition it is advised to back assertions with sources. It is hoped that he will also improve on this aspect. Good work Stephen you have won N5,000. Congrats!
A Ghetto Nativity: This type of creative writing can be difficult but Ebube created a beautiful dialogue that revolved around a familiar subject and even though the characters were confused, the readers aren’t. That in itself added to the humour. An absolutely brilliant and intelligent writer. Congratulations! You have won N10,000.
We also had good entries from Victor Okonjo, Esther Ojetunde and Oluwaseun Osanyinro who have been part of the competition for a long time.
In The Realities Of Online Dating Victor showed good structure but needs to develop his points more to form a cohesive argument and also proffer solutions or at least some projections.
Lessons From the Tinder Swindler by Esther Ojetunde: Esther “allowed her need to play Mummy GO to stand in the way of her writing” according to a judge. It is obvious that she is talented and wants to write. However, she cant seem to find the consistency. It is slow but steady and finding that steadiness is what we are all about here. There is no shortcut my dear, you just have to face that blank page and keep writing. You will definitely see the result.
Gbenro’s Quartet Trouble by Oluwaseun Osanyinro had a good dialogue and great characters. However, the writer seemed to leave the reader lost at times. An important part of good fiction is not to lose the reader.
Note: (Read tips on opinion essay writing here and also for lovers of brevity like Esther, you can check out craft essays on brevity mag here).
The opinion essay category had more entries so it made sense to award N20,000 to that category.
We are organising a talkshop for Week 43 which will hold by 3pm on the 20th of march 2022 so please endeavour to join/support us. In the meantime, send in your stories for publication and follow the publisher on https://cmoni2k.medium.com/ to push the account to 100 followers.
Thanks to everyone for their support.
