Like my pilot-father, I also dream to conquer the world – 21-yr-old Emily Nkanga
Strong ambitions run deep in this family. And the dreams are always for positive reasons. Young Emily Oluwatoyin Nkanga is only keying into success story of the family she was born into 21 years ago. The brilliance, success and the ‘we-can-do-it’ spirit of the members of this family have marked it out and endeared them to many in the community and beyond. The pace-setter and Emily’s father, Air Commodore Idongesit Okon Nkanga of Ikot Nya, a tiny faming hamlet in Nsit Ibom Local Government of Akwa Ibom State, is a well respected political leader in the state. He dreamt big, aiming to become a pilot at a time when the knowledge of such a subject was not only very limited but was almost unknown to the average rural family in the then South Eastern State. Those who knew about piloting as a career must have considered it to be for the ‘white men’ and not for a poor rural boy like Nkanga, whose parents laboured stridently to be able to pay his secondary school fees at the time. Notwithstanding the hurdle, the young man, surmounted all the hurdles and set a new record in his school by recording 6/6 in his WAEC School Certificate, meaning that he scored A1 in all the six subjects: English, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Additional Mathematics and Biology.
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