By Moses Nosike

Ethical standards practice is the need of the society, institutions, private and public sectors. It’s the bedrock of corporate governance to achieve desired results. It promotes moral discipline and calls for total adherence. Understanding its benefits to a developing society like Nigeria, FirstBank for 9 years now has sponsored CFA Society Nigeria on ethics challenges, promoting integrity and ethical leadership in finance.

Speaking at the venue where winners emerged at the 2025 CFA Society Nigeria Universities Ethnics Challenge competition held in Lagos, the Acting Group Head, Marketing and Corporate Communications, FirstBank, Olayinka Ijabiyi said, “We’ve been sponsoring this since 2016 and we are not stopping anytime soon. We believe that ethics is the anchor of corporate governance and without good corporate governance, you don’t have good institutions, private, public, everywhere. Our belief also is when you start talking ethics, you are not just talking business, you are talking sustainability, long-term. It is when you are an ethical organisation that you can survive long-term in any business that you are in and where else would we capture the leaders of tomorrow, the future people who would take our country and organisations forward, it’s at the university ethics competition by the CFA”.

Continuing, Ijabiyi said that “it is well thought out and that’s why we have gone to the base to capture them. “When they understand the basics of ethics, they become ambassadors and can go out and practice what they have learnt. This is beyond just learning it in school”.

However, each of the 8 finalists from the 31 universities that participated had 10 minutes to present their task and respond to questions from the panel of judges, to determine the winner. Judges evaluated each team based on understanding of ethical issues, application of the code and standards, quality of reasoning and defense, teamwork, delivery, time management and structure.

According to the organisers, the essence of this competition is to help students develop ethical reasoning and judgment skills, gain exposure to professional standards in finance, enhance presentation and teamwork abilities and network with CFA charterholders and leading investment professionals.

Among the 8 finalist teams were Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Bells University of Technology, Ota, Covenant University, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Benin, University of Ilorin, University of Lagos and University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The competition ended with the University of Benin becoming the champion of 2025 Universities Ethics Challenge competition, with the sum of N1.5m. University of Nigeria, Nsukka became the 1st runner-up winning N1m; 2nd runner-up, Covenant University, won N750,000; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria came 4th, Lagos State University was 5th, University of Ilorin, 6th, Obafemi Awolowo University, 7th, and Bells University of Technology Ota, 8th.

Also, Dr. Oluwasogo Adediran from Covenant University was given an award as Faculty Adviser of the year 2025, receiving a cash prize of N500,000. All the 8 finalists went home with awards.

Expressing joy and happiness, Team One member, Abhareyi Isaac, University of Benin, said, “We put in all our efforts, we were all cooperative. My team members were really supportive, helping me as the leader of this team. It wasn’t an easy journey, we had the critics, we had our fears for different schools and this is our first time coming into this challenge and still emerged winners. It’s overwhelming for me but we are really grateful for this opportunity that CFA and First Bank have given us.