ALOFUN OLUWATAYO: A LETTER FROM THE OTHER SIDE

ALOFUN OLUWATAYO: A LETTER FROM THE OTHER SIDE: A beneficiary of the University of Lagos Scholarship Award, Yusuf Olatunji of the Department of Geography and Planning has expressed gra...

A LETTER FROM THE OTHER SIDE

A beneficiary of the University of Lagos Scholarship Award, Yusuf Olatunji of the Department of Geography and Planning has expressed gratitude to authorities of the University for initiating the scheme. He stated this in a letter of appreciation addressed to the University’s Dean of Student Affairs.

        

Olatunji, who finished his course with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.82 in August, 2011, attributed his academic success to the award which alleviated his financial burden. Below is the full text of the letter:

“I am glad to have the opportunity to thank you personally and to express my sincere and deep appreciation for your kindness and the generosity you demonstrated to me and all scholars as recipients of the University of Lagos Endowment Scholarship. Your contribution was very significant and helped in achieving my goal with unquestionable success.

“Growing up in a poverty-ridden home where I personally had to work very hard to make ends meet has made me realize the value of University education. I was born into the family of Mr. and Mrs. Yusuf, where my parent had to work round the clock to cater for little out of my many needs. Infact, I will be the first in my family to attend the University and I hope to set a good example for my siblings and posterity. The granting of this scholarship has definitely paved my way to greater horizons. It has been my childhood dream to hold a Bachelor of Science from a reputable University like ours. To the glory of God, I recently graduated in August 2011 with a First Class in Geography and Planning (CGGPA of 4.82).This has been a real accomplishment for me and something I have worked very hard to achieve.

“This dream would not have come true without the University of Lagos Endowment Scholarship that was awarded to me. For my financial disability to meet the cost of pursuing such a course would not have permitted me to continue. For someone like me who doesn’t have any financial backing, this scholarship holds even greater importance to me. The University of Lagos Endowment Scholarship lightened my financial burden from my first year till date which allowed me to focus more on the most important aspect of school learning and also gave me stronger motivation to work towards excellence. Your generosity has inspired me to help others and give back to the community. I hope, one day, I will be able to help students achieve their goals and dreams, just as you have helped me.

“I will forever appreciate and would like to convey my sincere thanks to the University of Lagos Alumni Association and other Endowment Partners for all their philanthropic support to humanity in all ramifications particularly at periods I needed them most. God bless you real good, Sir/Ma. I promise to work very hard and be a good ambassador of this great University wherever I go, and eventually give something back to others, both as an environmental scientist and possibly scholarship to future students.

“As a fresh graduate, my plans include pursuing a Master’s Degree in International Development (Environment, Resources & Development) and if given the opportunity, a PhD in United Kingdom or United States of America. I do not only have a passion for the environment and its resources, I also have a vision to help make the global community a safer place to live.

“Once again, I offer my sincere thanks to all for their generous support. Thank you Sir, from the core of my heart.”
Having graduated too, trust me it feels so cool to stand from the outside gate to write a letter such as this or what do you think?

A DEFENCE WITHOUT OFFENCE

Final year students of Mass Comm. UNILAG during Prof. Class

It finally happened on Tuesday 4^th of October 2011 at the high court of department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos under the supreme Justice Ralph Akinfeleye-the usually dreaded project defence. Although project defence happens everywhere but the defence in mass comm. is peculiar for many reasons- it is the day of reckoning and accountability and for all those who have dodged personal and group assignments as undergraduate-it is the judgment seat of Prof. Ralph and co. Mass comm. Limited.

At about 12 noon we were all asked to line-up, that sound like a symbol of finality to me...hmm, you know that in UNILAG you have to queue for everything- when you started your registration in year one, you queue, at shuttle and cab park queue, to fetch bathing water in the morning sef na queue!(if you doubt it ask those who stayed in Makama, in the days when makama was still makama and shodeinde was still shodeinde. Thank God I’m finally free from the many queues.

Back to the judgement seat of Akinfeleye, we all entered the hall and were offered comfortable wooden seats some of which are partly broken but just who are we to complain before the chairman and head. Our attention was immediately called to the nine commandment of Akinfeleye written on the board them order to be followed in presenting the overview of the project- too bad i can’t remember them again, but why should I even remember them in the first place, I will never need them again, so... After a brief opening prayer the first person was asked to make his presentation comfortably sitting down. Waoh! He was practically the scape pig (sorry, I mean scape goat) for the rest of us- I really commend his courage despite his nervousness; he finished within the 5 minutes given to him, then the next person and the next person until it was my turn.

I delivered my presentation with such preparedness; speed and authoritative loud voice that even the chief justice Akinfeleye had to tell me “Mr. ALOFUN PLEASE CALM DOWN, ITS NOT A WAR ZONE” never! I refuse to calm down, how can he tell me that defending a six unit course is not war- it is war! But I won. I was the man of the day. I soon became a consultant for many others from the next day, the news of my great presentation spread so fast like fire in a cocoa plantation during dry season- maybe you don hear sef but you just dey pletend. Any way, now you know!

In the end our many offences were recounted, for some it was poor abstract, for others acknowledgement but the greatest offence is to leave proposal language unchecked-this offence attracts a capital punishment of REDO- meaning re-writing the whole project, but to God be the glory, there was no victim of proposal language. The only person that was close to that escaped narrowly and he later became a preacher of proposal language. I remember one of our friends had nine research questions HABA! Those ones are set to kill Prof. But he also survived. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the Friday defence when everybody when we got breaking news that those presenting on Friday will present on Thursday and that those for Monday and Tuesday should also be on standby because everybody must present on Thursday.

All the blackberry babes swing into action pinging one another, thank God I had presented because my 3310 NOKIA palasa can never receive any ping, the defence closed at about 9pm on Thursday and the last set was done early on friday. Above all, now I can boldly say- I AM A GRADUATE, YOU NKO!

THE TRUTH ABOUT SELF-EMPLOYMENT

Ibukun Awosika, an enterpreneur

Let’s start like this- mention four names of a successful entrepreneur of your choice? For me, I will mention Ibunkun Awosika of Socoa Chair, Jimoh Ibrahim- the owner of Mirror newspaper, Mike Adenuga of GLOBACOM, Aliko Dangote of Dangote Groups. That’s OK less I break the rule, I said four! Considering the opulent life of these millionaire entrepreneurs, everybody will like to be self-employed too, including me sef. In fact, our popular motivational speakers have advised us to create jobs and employ others rather than looking for employers, these words are so great!

Every time you pick up a newspaper and look at the business column you see such things like- Work from home, Be your own boss, decide what time to walk, work at your own pace and earn twice what your office can pay you. Many people have unfortunately bitten more than they can chew only to realise the truth about entrepreneurship- what is the truth? Entrepreneurship is about hard work and sacrifice. No wonder some people have gone bankrupt or bitter or both.

I was at a programme titled DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH where Ibukun Awosika spoke about her early days of entrepreneurship- she said she started at the back of her father’s house using her father’s machine and had no funds to execute the projects. Every time clients bring furniture work, she will collect half of the project money to pay for the materials and pay the workers half of their workmanship, when she is done with the project she will collect the remaining balance and balance up the workers then pay the rent of tools. The remaining profit goes into two things- purchase of petty tools for the business and her upkeep.

While her mates in the Banks have bought their beautiful cars, she was driving footwagon (using her foot to walk around). After sometimes however, she stopped buying tools because she had bought all she wanted for the business and she had more money to expand the business. She later had foreign investment partnership and today she is a big woman, she can now work at her pace.

All the promises of gains that self-employment gives are true and real but the flipside of that truth is that it is not automatic, you will have to invest hard work at the beginning and groom the business to a point where you can begin to enjoy all the good benefits that self- employment promises.

Today, Ibukun Awosika is one the Nigerian top entrepreneurship woman, yet, she still took another step to attend the Lagos business school to acquire more management skill, for everything she never had in those days she now have them ten times over. Still thinking of getting self-employed? Count the cost.