By Sunday Ani
The Eze family from the Lekki Deanery has won the 2024 Archbishop Adewale Martins Catholic Faith Quiz Competition.
The grand finale of the competition held at St Leo’s Catholic Church, Ikeja, was meant to deepen the faith of Catholic families in the Lagos Catholic Archdiocese
The event was organised by the Knight of St John International (KSJI) in collaboration with the laity and the directorate of religious education in the archdiocese.
Speaking at the event, the Grand President of the Lagos Grand Command of the KSJI, Brig-General Chuks Joachin Amamgbo said the quiz was all about Catholic faith.
He said it became imperative following the general belief among protestants that Catholics do not read the Bible and do not know their bible.
“But from what happened here today, you can see that a lot of the Catholics have the bible at their fingertips. So, we are deepening the catholic faith through the Catechism, reading the bible and competing on them.
“This is the ninth edition. We had five contestants in the final stage because the Lagos archdiocese is divided into five regions. The competition starts from the parish to the deanery and then to the region where the champion from each region will come for the final competition.”
He noted that he was elated at the turn out of the annual event. He said: “When you have planned something and it comes out successful, you are bound to be happy and that explains my happiness. As a grand president, it has always been my wish to raise the bar and this year, we have raised the bar.”
Archbishop Martins who personally witnessed the quiz competition commended the KSJI, the laity and the directorate of religious education for putting together the event. “You have done this as part of the effort to expand the scope of good news through this means of learning the faith; I say thank you.
“I also commend the ladies and men of KSJI for carrying on with this tradition, which has generated so much interest. I commend them for the initiative and for being faithful to it over the years. I am happy because it has been replicated in other places outside this diocese,” he said.
He encouraged members of the KSJI to continue with the yearly event, praying that God would provide for them not only spiritually but also materially. “It is very heartwarming to note that the contestants took time to learn and study for this competition. Please don’t allow your thirst for knowledge to end in this competition; you must continue to learn. “I once again commend the collaboration between the KSJI, the directorate of religious education and the laity. This kind of collaboration should extend to other aspects of our lives as an archdiocese.”
Five families that took part in the competition were the Ezeimo, Ezenwa, Eze, Oke and Rowland. The Ezes scored 45 points to take the first position, carting away N500,000. The Ezenwa family scored 43 points to place second and smiled home with N300,000, while the Ezeimo family scored 37 points to place third with a cash prize of N200,000. The fourth position which has a N200,000 cash prize went to the Oke family with 36 points, while the last and fifth position which has no prize award went to the Rowland family who scored 32 points.
