Everything people actually ask us.

Anybody aged 16 or over on the closing date, with a National Identification Number. You do not have to live in Akwa Ibom State, and you do not have to be a professional designer. Members of the organising Committee, the Review Panel, the checking desk and Ministry officers working on this competition may not enter.

No. Entry is completely free. No agent, officer or "consultant" may charge you to enter, to submit, or to improve your chances — and anybody who offers is not acting for the Ministry. If somebody asks you for money, report it to the help desk with their name and number.

No. The panel scores the design and has no idea who made it — it never sees your name, your age or where you live. A student with a good idea and a clean vector file competes on exactly the same footing as a studio.

Up to three at a time. Each is judged completely separately. If you withdraw one, that slot frees up for another.

An entry is submitted by one verified person, who signs the originality warranty and who would receive any prize. If several of you worked on a design, decide between you who submits it — and remember that person is warranting the work is theirs.

To confirm you are a real person, aged 16 or over, entering once. It is what stops one designer entering thirty times under different names, and it is what lets the State pay a prize to the right person. Your NIN is encrypted, is never shown to the checking desk or the Review Panel, and is not sent to any screening service.

Almost every one of these is lighting, not your face. Stand facing a window in daylight — not with the window behind you — take off any cap and glasses, hold the phone at eye level, keep a neutral expression, and try again. Most people who failed twice pass on the third attempt by a window. If it still refuses, come to the MSDE help desk at the Ministry with your NIN slip and an officer will register you in person using the same checks.

Check the eleven digits carefully — transposed digits are the usual cause. If they are right and it still fails, your NIMC record may have a problem that only NIMC can fix; visit an enrolment centre. Do not wait until the last day to find this out.

Use Sign in rather than Register, and enter the email address or phone number you registered with. We send a six-digit code — there is no password to forget. If the code does not arrive, check your spam folder, then ask for a new one after sixty seconds.

Come to the MSDE help desk at the Ministry of Science and Digital Economy in Uyo during opening hours. An officer will register you and upload your files with you. Bring your NIN slip and your artwork on a USB drive or memory card.

Four required files: a high-resolution preview (PNG or JPEG, at least 3,000 px on the longest side), your vector source (SVG, AI, EPS or PDF with real paths), a full-colour PNG and a one-colour black PNG (both at least 2,000 px). Up to three optional mock-ups. The How to enter page has step-by-step export settings for Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Figma.

The gate estimates the quality factor your software exported at, not how the image looks on your screen. A JPEG saved at quality 70 looks acceptable on a phone and falls apart on a banner. Re-export at quality 90 or above, or simply supply a PNG instead — PNG has no quality setting to get wrong.

A PDF or EPS with a picture placed inside it is not a vector source, even though it opens in a vector application. We check for actual drawn paths. If you designed in Photoshop or a phone app, you will need to redraw the final mark in a vector tool. This is the most common reason a genuinely good design fails.

Usually under a minute per file. You will see each file move from Uploading to Checking to Accepted, or to Rejected with the exact measurement that failed. You cannot submit until every required file shows Accepted.

Yes, until entries close. Every edit is kept as a new version and the latest one is what gets judged. Your reference number never changes.

Yes, and you must say so. There is a compulsory AI Use Statement: name each tool, say at which stage you used it — ideation, reference imagery, drafting elements, refinement, or final artwork — and describe in at least twenty words what it produced. Declaring AI use honestly does not disqualify your entry. An inaccurate declaration does, at any stage, including after a prize is announced.

Because they are scoring originality and creativity, and they are entitled to know how the work was made. Your statement is shown to them with an "AI-assisted (declared)" badge. Several very strong entries in previous editions declared AI use for reference imagery.

Anything in the design you did not create: a typeface, a photograph you traced, an icon, a texture, a pattern. Declare each one with its source and licence, and attach the licence or a link to it. If you drew everything yourself, tick "I used none" — that is a complete answer.

No. Those are the Government's own marks. You are designing a festival identity that will sit alongside them, not one that incorporates them. Entries that use them are refused under RULE-02.

No. It stays entirely yours and you keep the copyright. Only the first-place design assigns to the State, and only as a condition of that prize, with you credited as its designer on every piece of festival material.

A seven-member Review Panel appointed by the Ministry. They score independently against a published 100-point rubric, they cannot see each other's scores, and they never see your name. Where five or more members score an entry, the highest and lowest totals are dropped before averaging. The top ten are compared side by side in a second round.

After the panel has finished and the Sponsor has approved the outcome. Winners are told privately, by phone and email, before anything is published. Nothing appears on this site until the result is approved and locked.

You complete a prize claim on your dashboard: bank details, BVN, and an electronic signature accepting the prize. The State compares your verified NIN name against your bank account name, which must match. Payment follows verification, with withholding tax deducted at source, and you receive a payment advice showing gross, tax and net.

A winner has 30 days from notification to complete their claim. After that the prize passes to a reserve. Keep the phone number and email on your account current.

A public gallery of entries that passed the eligibility check may be published alongside the results, at the Committee's discretion. Nothing is published while judging is under way.