Critical thinkers, problem solvers emerge at Sabi Math Championship 2026 …As Onwubiko takes Mathematics to Agor, Lagos

In a calculated  move to encourage, sensitise and motivate schools in Lagos to study Mathematics, a teacher and consultant, Martins Onwubiko has kicked off what he called Sabi Math Championship.

The competition, the first of its kind in Lagos and which was designed to hold annually, was held at the imposing Royal Dutch School, Lagos on Thursday, March 14, 2026.

Before the kick off of the championship, Onwubiko assured the pupils that everybody was a winner. “To our pupils, by being here, you have already won, you stepped out of your comfort zone, you accepted the challenge. You chose growth over fear

“To our school owners and teachers, thank you for choosing exposure over limitation. Thank you for allowing your pupils to experience competition beyond their classroom walls, because competitions like this build confidence, speed and accuracy, healthy academic rivalry and long-term excellence,” he said.

Onwubiko who stated that the event was not just about conducting a math competition, added that it was also about shaping future problem solvers, future engineers, future scientists, and future leaders.

He spoke further about the championship. “We recorded over 40 schools with about 145 pupils on our list. It is designed for those in either primary 5 or 6, the schools decide who to feature and I am sure each school registered their best. It is a competition and there is a prize attached to it, we have N100,000 for the first prize, 70,000 for second position and N50,000 for the third position, and we have medals from the 1st to 10th position.”

On what motivated him to embark on the organisation of such competition, he said  “I am a teacher and also a consultant. I have been teaching for about 20 years now, but I am no more a classroom teacher, I train schools, I train teachers. It is a vision I have for a long time. Now I decided to do it here in Agor because most schools in Agor don’t go to outside competition, I go for national competitions when I was a teacher, when I go out I don’t see schools from this environment. That is why I said let me start from this environment. I think I am happy with the turn up.”

A maximum of five pupils registered from each school and the championship was carried out at two levels, the level of general examination whereby all the pupils were subjected to a written test and out of about 145 pupils that participated only the top 20 migrated to the second stage of the competition, then from this number 10 best pupils emerged till the best three emerged.

Onwubiko said what he is doing is a vision, an urge, something he has wanted to do, and he is doing it from his personal purse. “It is something I wanted to do, it is the first edition, first I was talking to fiends but you know, you have to believe in your dreams before other have to, so I believe in the dream, I started the dream, I do the funding myself.”

He said he is looking forward to collaborating with companies because there is need to restrengthen the educational system in Nigeria. “When we have cooperate bodies partnering with us, we tend to do more because we have more things we want to put in place. So we need people who believe in our education system.

“So when we do competition like this, it is a way of exposing the pupils because competitions are for exposure, some pupils came, this is their first time, I heard some say they have not taught us this, that is exposure because they are not confined in the classroom work, you are outside classroom seeing what is being done, you go beyond the scope of your school, so that is what we are doing,” he said.

Speaking on the choice of mathematics as the only subject for the competition, he said, “We discover that mathematics is the major problem of the present world. Now in the time of AI, in the time of critical thinking Mathematics help out. That is why we want every child to take it seriously. When I was growing up I found out that Mathematics was a scary subject to a lot of people.”

Onwubiko urged schools to embrace  mathematics and competition as subject of choice. “My message to schools is to embrace competition because that is the only way to know if their schools are doing well or not. Whatever they are doing within their school space they don’t know what is happening there, and it is when you allow our students to compete in healthy academic rivalry we now know that okay this school is doing well, we can really work on our own lapses. I give the teachers kudos for stepping out, there are schools that are afraid of coming because they don’t want to lose, but losing is part of learning.”

Winners at the Sabi Maths 2026 were  Chiemerie Okonkwo who came tops, followed by Jaden Agu and Franklin Mmesomma Marvelous who came second and third respectively, while the fourth person was Uche-Umeh Chidalu.