Master Godswill Okafor, a primary six pupil of the Plateau Private School, Jos has won a N12 million scholarship in a mathematics competition held in Abuja.

The scholarship covers his six-year secondary school education in any of the six Tulip Colleges in Nigeria.

Okafor came second in the northern region where he competed with 512 others.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the competition was organised by the Nigeria Tulip International College (NTIC), Abuja, in collaboration with the National Mathematical Centre, Abuja.

Mr Lucky Abdul-Hakeem, the Managing Director of NTIC, who briefed newsmen on the competition on Tuesday in Jos, said that the initiative was to encourage pupils to love mathematics and improve their performance in it.

“The scholarship covers tuition, feeding and accommodation of the pupil for the six-year study in the school,” he explained.

He said that the competition commenced in February and ended with the award ceremony, adding that N200,000 cash was also given to Okafor.

Abdula-Hakeem said that a desktop computer was given to Okafor’s school, while his mathematics teacher received N100,000 cash gift.

In her remarks, Mrs. Joy Okafor, the mother of the winner, commended the school for grooming her son to excel in the competition.

Okafor, a nurse, challenged parents to augment efforts of schools toward instilling excellence in children.

“We assist him in his homework; his father downloads mathematics questions from the internet and challenge him to answer them,” he said.

Godwin, who described his feat as “very encouraging”, advised his peers to love mathematics.

“The subject is simple; you only need to know the formula,” he said. (NAN)