Boluwatife Oyekan, achieving a first class grade is the fruit of a lot of sacrifice and self-denial. “I never gave room for any distraction. One, I did not get involved in any amorous affair with the opposite sex. Again, I developed a workable reading time table for myself; and I kept to it.
“Essentially, it is the way you are
dressed that people will address you. I kept to the doctrine of my
church: the Deeper Life Bible Church. I never wore any skimpy dress. In
fact, I never wore earrings. So, no boy ever came to me to say, ‘Bolu, I
want to date you.”
Apart from being the best graduating student, Boluwatife, who scored a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.75, also got other cash
awards for being the best graduating student in her department, College
of Pure and Applied Science. She is also the most outstanding student
with a Grade Point Average of above 3.50.
She beat other top flyers that include
Adesanya Oluwadamilola and Osagie Oluwatobi, who had CGPAs of 4.57 and
4.52, bagging a B.Sc. in Mass Communication and Computer Science
respectively.
The petite 21-year-old graduate of
Industrial Chemistry says the counselling she got from the Dean of her
former department, Prof. Olukayode Ajayi, also helped her a great deal.
She explains that Ajayi , who counselled her on her first day in the
school, told her about his own undergraduate days and how he managed his
time.
She says, “He told me never to pile up
my dirty clothes but to wash them as they got dirty. While others were
washing their own piles of dirty clothes on Saturday, I was free from
such. So, I usually headed for the academic block, where I would bury
myself in my books, reading.
“The dean also advised me on how to read
my notes. He said when a lecturer gives the first lecture and gives a
note, I should read it. When the lecturer gives the second one, I should
read it over and then go back to the first one and also read. So, on
and on, that was how I pursued my study.”
Recalling what she regards as a tinge of
divine intervention in her attending Caleb University, Boluwatife, who
attended the British International School, Lekki, Lagos for her
secondary school education, states that she had initially gained
admission into the University of Manitoba, Canada but she was refused
visa. She notes that she passed the Test of English as a Foreign
Language and she got all her documentation right.
She adds, “I was offered admission to
read Medicine. But the Canadian Embassy refused to give me visa, giving
an excuse that I was not a bonafide student. I wept and almost became
inconsolable. But now I believe it was God who did not want me to travel
abroad then.
“Then, though I was attending a church, I
was not God-fearing. It was while I was in Caleb University that I
really moved closer to God, and I thank all those numerous people who
came and preached at the school chapel throughout my stay there.”
Seems to me all the best graduating students ddidn't date any one starting from Babcock, Convenant Now Caleb
Boluwatife is the fourth of Mr. and Mrs.
Olusegun Oyekan’s six children.
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