By FUNMILAYO ADEYEMI

The Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Suleja Region, Niger State, has presented cash rewards to the best 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates from the church.

The Regional Overseer, Pastor Samuel Ndagi, made the presentation to the candidates on Sunday, in Suleja.

Miss Faith Emmanuel, who scored 279 points in the 2025 UTME, was presented with a cheque of N100,000, courtesy of the Deeper Life Schools Outreach (DLSO) programme.

Miss Deborah Emmanuel, with a score of 275, received the sum of N70,000, while Miss Favour Ussaini, who scored 268, went home with the sum of N50,000.

The cleric said the church decided to reward hard work among her teaming youths to encourage academic excellence.

He maintained that Deeper Life was not only concerned about the spiritual welfare of the youth but also their academic performance.

“The purpose of the award is to stir up other youths in the church to perform at their best and to discourage laziness. We want them to come out the best everywhere they are found.”

He prayed for the awardees and urged them to keep soaring higher in all areas of their endeavours.

Similarly, Mr Favour Amakor, the Regional Youth and DLSO Coordinator, said that the award, which started in 2023 had a benchmark of 250 in the UTME, which the church intended to increase to 280 in 2026.

“We decided to have this reward system in place after observing the performance of our youths in previous years.

“Since we started, the results have been improving yearly; we have discovered a progression in the scores of our youths since we started.

“Last year’s performance was higher than the previous and this year is the highest so far. We believe that next year will be better.

“So far, we have awarded seven candidates; one in 2023, three in 2024, and three in 2025.”

The star prize winner, Miss Faith Emmanuel, was represented by her father, Mr Emmanuel Bassey, as she had already started a Criminology and Security degree programme at a private university in Minna.

The first runner-up, Miss Deborah Emmanuel, expressed gratitude to the church for the gesture.

“I am grateful for this cash award by Deeper Life. I intend to use part of the money to learn a skill, which will be useful for me in future.

”It is a form of encouragement for me to study harder and perform better in future.”

Similarly, Miss Favour Ussaini also thanked the leadership of the church for the initiative, and encouraged others to become beneficiaries.

“I am so glad to be among the top three in the region. I am grateful to the church for this reward and I will use part of the money for my school runs.

“I have gained admission to the University of Benin to study Medical Microbiology. I want to encourage other youths to do well so that they can also be rewarded.” (NAN)