17-Year Old Student, Jemimah Marcus, Becomes Lagos’ One-Day Governor

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Monday, yielded the seat of authority for Ms. Jemimah Marcus for a brief moment to step in as one-day Governor of Lagos State.

The 17-year-old student of Angus Memorial Secondary School in Somolu, Lagos East, won the 2020 edition of the Spelling Bee Competition, thereby earning the honour to become the one-day Governor.

The weekly Executive Council meeting of the State’s cabinet was presided over by Ms. Marcus, an indigene of Edo State, as Sanwo-Olu temporarily stepped aside and observed the proceedings.

Spelling Bee competition, a contest between public schools across Lagos, is one of the legacy programmes in the State’s education sector pioneered in 2001 by the then First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu through her New Era Foundation.

Since 2015, the State Government has taken full charge of the programme, collaborating with partners and stakeholders to further help realise its objectives.

Presiding over the cabinet meeting, Ms. Marcus commended the Sanwo-Olu administration for initiating “laudable” programmes through its THEMES agenda to turn around governance and service delivery.

Describing Sanwo-Olu as a “transformational leader”, the one-day Governor said the State had recorded giant strides in education, health, housing, infrastructure renewal, transportation, youth and women development in the last two years of the administration.