Nigerian Emmanuel Ohuabunwa, 22, Breaks Academic Records at Johns Hopkins University
Every year, thousands of young Nigerians travel to the United States to study. While many do well, only a few graduate at the top of their university class. Emmanuel Ohuabunwa, 22, is one of those select few. However, his story doesn’t stop there. Not only did he graduate at the top of his class at Johns Hopkins University last year, he made history by becoming the first Black man to do so in the university’s history. Ohuabunwa, who hails from Abia State, has been able to make the nation proud and with his efforts has won himself a scholarship to Yale University to get a degree in medicine.
Meet Phiona Mutesi – From Uganda Slum to World Chess Prodigy
Phiona Mutesi was a muddy, desperate 9-year-old foraging for food in Uganda’s biggest slum, Katwe, when she discovered, through her older brother Brian, a chess program. It was not pawns, rooks, bishops, knights or a king that drew her to a church verandah in Katwe, Kampala – it was what came with the lessons: a free bowl of porridge.
“We didn’t have food. We were sleeping on the streets because we didn’t have the money to rent a house. It was a hard time,” says Mutesi, 17, whose father died of AIDS when she was 3.
“The pieces looked attractive to me. I didn’t want to learn the game. That time I just wanted to get a cup of porridge.”
Since then, she has competed in two chess Olympiads in Siberia and Turkey. She was also named a Woman Candidate Master, the bottom-ranking title given by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, after last year’s event in Istanbul. She recently spoke at the Women in the World summit in New York, attended by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and media powerhouse Oprah Winfrey.
In the United States, Mutesi also played against her hero, grandmaster Garry Kasparov, one of the game’s greatest champions of the 20th century. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has reportedly asked to play her, and Disney is in the early stages of production of a movie on her life. One U.S.
school has even started a tournament in her name.
