The Borg Policy Compete
Background
The Borg Public Policy Essay Competition is a pan-African ideas platform designed to surface rigorous, original, and actionable policy thinking from young Africans. It bridges research, lived experience, and governance realities, with outstanding essays positioned for meaningful engagement with policymakers, experts, and institutions.
This is not an academic exercise. It is a policy intervention
Essay Prompt
Theme: Defining the Nigerian State
Topic: Is Nigeria a Welfare State?
Commentary on the Prompt:
This essay invites participants to critically examine whether Nigeria, in law, policy, and practice, can truly be described as a welfare state. Applicants should interrogate the role of the Nigerian state in providing social protection, access to basic services, and economic opportunity, drawing on constitutional provisions, government programmes, and lived realities.
Submissions should go beyond theory to assess the gap between policy commitments and actual outcomes, and propose what Nigeria’s social contract ought to look like in practice.
Eligibility
The Borg Public Policy Essay Competition is a pan-African ideas platform designed to surface rigorous, original, and actionable policy thinking from young Africans. It bridges research, lived experience, and governance realities, with outstanding essays positioned for meaningful engagement with policymakers, experts, and institutions.
This is not an academic exercise. It is a policy intervention
General Guidelines
Academic Integrity
This essay competition upholds the highest level of academic integrity. Participants are expected to adhere strictly to these standards.
Original Work
Each essay must be the original work of the participant. The use of AI tools for arguments in writing is strictly prohibited.
Essays must reflect the participant’s own ideas, analysis, and expression.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is not tolerated in any form. Any essay found to involve plagiarism will be immediately disqualified from the competition. Participants must ensure that all sources are appropriately cited and that the essay is composed of their unique thoughts and words.
Sole authorship required
The essay you submit must be entirely your own work. Collaboration with others or co-authorship is not permitted. You are allowed to seek advice and discuss topics with others, but no one else should be involved in the actual writing of the essay. It must be your own work.
One Essay Submission
Participants are allowed to submit only one essay. Furthermore, each essay must address the provided topic.
Format Guidelines
Please ensure that your essay does not exceed 1500 words; this word count excludes footnotes and bibliography.
Please use a consistent font format and set the line spacing to 1.5 spaces.
All submissions will be routed through plagiarism and an AI checker. As such, we expect all submissions to be properly cited.
The format of citation for this competition is OSCOLA, the 10th edition of the Modern Language Association style. To find out more about MLA 8, please refer to this guide here.
The essay must be submitted in PDF format. In the PDF document, please remove your name, affiliation, or any personal information to ensure a blind review. You will be asked to provide personal information in the submission system.
Include your word count at the top of the document.
Awards
Gold – 1st
Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N250,000) Cash Award, Digital award certificate, invitation for a feature interview on Bor Quarterly, and invitation to the Award Ceremony.
Silver – 2nd
One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (150,000 Naira Cash Award), Digital award certificate, invitation for a feature interview on Borg Quarterly, and invitation to the Award Ceremony.
Bronze – 3rd
One Hundred Thousand Naira (100,000 Naira Cash Award), Digital award certificate, invitation for a feature interview on Bor Quarterly, and invitation to the Award Ceremony.
Honourable Mention – Around 10% of the total participants that are shortlisted but do not receive the aforementioned awards will receive a digital certificate recognising their Honourable Mention, and invitations to the Award Ceremony.