Photo of - An 80 year-old retired civil servant, who received his Second Class Honours Lagos State University.

Does this remind of the movie called the ‘The First Grader’ a true story of Kimani Maruge  a Kenyan man who enrolled in elementary education at the age of 84 when the Kenyan government announced universal and free elementary education in 2003?

Oh well,we have to celebrate our very own Pa Alimi Olarenwaju Amodu  who Graduated from the university, he  received his Second Class Honours degree in Sociology from the Lagos State University, yesterday. 

We learnt never failed any course during his undergraduate days and was popularly known as “Youngest Student” and “Baba Bookwarm” amongst other students. And here is his story:

 It was by God’s grace that I graduated from LASU without having to re-sit for any carry-over course.

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Although during my undergraduate days, I faced a lot of challenging moments like having to wake up very early to catch a bus to school. What really helped me to succeed throughout was that I had from the foundation learned from my mother to wake up as early as 3.00 a.m.

I usually read from 3.00 a.m. to 6.00 a.m to constantly update my scope of knowledge, and I thank God who saw me through to this point.” On how he felt sitting together to receive lectures with students who are young enough to be his grand children, he said:

“That’s very good. It was a stiff competition between me and them. When you are competing with young students, there’s no age consideration.

I have to always struggle to sit at the front in class. Another point is that the lecturers address everyone as equal in the university.” Sharing his most memorable moment on campus, he recalled the incident that occurred in class sometime ago, when he dozed off during a lecture.

 “That day, my lecturer caught me dozing in class. He said to me: ‘Baba you are sleeping’ and I said, ‘No sir, I wasn’t sleeping.” So he said: ‘If you weren’t sleeping, what did I say last?” I couldn’t answer. He asked me what I ate before coming to school, and I told him I ate rice.

Then he advised me not to take heavy meals before coming to school , but just a cup of tea and some slices of bread. “The funniest thing is that I was disciplined by standing up till the end of the lecture.”

Source: Vanguard.

 Amazing news!It shows the power of determination.