Funmi Ogundare
Whitesands School, Lekki recently unveiled the second edition of ‘THE SAIL’, a literary/art publication of its students comprising fiction, poetry, essay and poems that have been adjudged the best by authors in the respective category.
Speaking at the presentation ceremony, the Vice-Principal, Senior School, Mr. Sebastian Eleike, said the publication is a compilation of winning entries and that the best in each category are given honorable mention in the book.
“It is a competition because the students have to make entries and we have to vet and pass on to external personnel to go through and they select the best among the entries in different categories including poetry, essays, art work and stories. The best ones constitute the publication. We send the various categories to people who are well versed in those areas, outside the school so they read through and two or three in each category are given mention.”
He said the book is something that has been there from time, adding that the school is keen about all round formation of the education of students. “We are interested in the academics, sciences, arts, sports and the idea of getting students to think and be creative. The publication started two years ago, we have always had a year book and students have always contributed to the material and also served as members of the editorial board and in the past we have been producing brochures and in producing all of these things, we get the students to contribute in one way or the other.”
The Principal, Dr. Lorenzo David, said the move was to create an avenue for the students to show their creativity and to immortalise their works. “It is something that is very good, we have our sister school have been doing this for decades and last year, we came up with the first edition, we told our teachers to collect all the works of the students. The winner of the 2013 NLNG Prize for Poetry, Mr. Tade Ipadeola was among those that vetted last year’s edition. From time to time, universities come to talk to us, they have been very impressed and they support the publication.”
He said his school has plans to make the works available online, but has no plan to publicise it to a much wider audience. Master Anthony Azekwoh, 16, who won the first prize in the fiction category, said he was inspired by what he sees around him. “I just looked around at the things we did and I was trying to wonder how we act. Last year I was also in this same publication, and since then I have been writing. As a human being, I asked myself why we do something and we don’t ask ourselves why we do those things. The story I wrote was about a man who was going through troubles with his family and his friends.”
Master Jesse Okoroafor who got the first prize with his essay on deforestation, said he was inspired to write on deforestation because of the way people use forest life and because no one seems to care about it. “Nigerians burn bushes anyhow and they don’t know the positive impact of forest in our lives. It provides a lot of oxygen and provides a lot of benefit to us but people just cut down trees anyhow. As I go home every day, I always see people burning bushes, and I asked my parents why can’t they have land reserve somewhere and they told me that since people don’t really know about it and no one cares about it, they don’t know its benefit so I felt I should write to fight against it.”
