By ADEROGBA GEORGE

Mr Ikenna Mbah, a 400 level Law student from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, has emerged the overall winner of the 2024 World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Essay Competition, an official has said.

The Director, WIPO Nigeria, Mr Oluwatobiloba Moody, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a meeting with the management and staff of the Nigerian Copyright Commission in Abuja.

Oluwatobiloba said, ?We had about 256 applicants who entered for the competition. First of all, we had three phases, we had 20 judges that were selected from government?s policymakers, international organisations, academia who reviewed all the essays.

?When we went to second phase, 60 students were moved into second phase. They went into blind grouping among 20 judges who assessed them independently.

?And it was based on that, we had a final 20. Of the final 20, we have five winners and the remaining 15 constitute what we called finalists. The overall winner is Mr Ikenna Mbah, a 400 level Law student from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.?

The WIPO director, who said the essay competition was intended to do three things, said the first one was to create an opportunity for students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, research and engage in issues of intellectual property.

According to him, this aims to create more awareness and strengthen capacity around IP.

?Second thing we wanted the essay to do was to use the opportunity to identify students we can invest more in, provide more opportunities as a way of strengthening their capacity and to bring them into the tour like this.

?It is an opportunity for them to be able to learn more about IP, meet faces institutions behind IP system and we will continue to have more prizes for them.

?The third thing we had this essay competition was to inform the policy makers because of some issues around how can we make IP better in Nigeria. The key thing is to bring those ideas back to those policymakers who need to help them.? (NAN)

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