Uyodhu Agadaga, a final-year student at Nile University, Abuja has emerged winner of the 2024 ‘Young Tax Professional of the Year’ competition organised by EY Nigeria.
In a statement, EY Nigeria said that the competition received 425 applications, drawn from 53 tertiary institutions across the country.
The first and second runners-up positions went to Kolawole Olaniyan and Nahomi Okikiri, both students of the University of Lagos.
According to the firm, the emergence of the winners followed a selection process at different stages of the program, involving logical and quantitative reasoning skills, research, article writing and case studies.
It disclosed that 274 were shortlisted, out of which those numbers were further scaled down to 57 (at the quarter-final stage) and to 30 (at the semi-final stage).
It stated that only 10 students made it to the final stage, including Daniel Adegboye (University of Lagos); Emmanuella Mafe (Covenant University); Kolawole Olaniyan (University of Lagos); Nahomi Okikiri (University of Lagos); Nnamdi Ugo Chukwu (University of Lagos) and Olamide Emida (University of Lagos).
Others are Oshio Samuel (Covenant University), Precious Shoyebo (Obafemi Awolowo University), Tomiwa Adeyeri (Ekiti State University), and Uyodhu Agadaga (Nile University, Abuja).
The finalists were invited to the EY Nigeria office in Lagos for the grand finale to receive awards and presentations of certificates and gifts.
Uyodhu Agadaga will represent EY Nigeria at the global level, where she will meet and compete with other winners drawn from EY offices across geographies.
The firm added that all 10 finalists would also have the opportunity to undergo internship and mentorship programmes with EY Nigeria.
In his remarks during the presentation of award certificates and gifts to the top finalists in Lagos, the Associate Partner in Tax Services & Director of the programme, Akeem Ogunseni, said the primary focus of the competition was to go into the institutions of higher learning to catch the students who had a keen interest in taxation.
He added that eight pillars of selection were deployed in testing the contestants, benchmarked against international standards.
Congratulating the 10 finalists, Partner/EY Tax Leader for West Africa, Akinbiyi Abudu, said it was an exciting moment for the students who had put their hearts and souls into the competition. He added that the competition was all about grooming the next generation of leaders in the tax profession, who would take over from the present crop of tax leaders in the future.
According to EY, competition is one of the ways it connects with the immediate tax community and the world at large.
Although the global competition has been running for 13 years, EY Nigeria introduced the programme three years ago, primarily to identify key talents as well as groom the next generation of leaders in the tax profession from penultimate and final year students in tertiary institutions across the 36 states of the nation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
