I Wept When I Was Denied Visa, But Today I'm Best Graduating Student In Nigeria

Her name is Boluwatife Oyekan, she wanted to leave Nigeria and seek for a better life elsewhere but efforts in that regards failed as she was denied a Canadian Visa. About 5 years down the line, Boluwatife emerged the best graduating student of Caleb University, Lagos.

For 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."

She was the cynosure of all eyes at the institution’s third convocation ceremony held at its multipurpose hall, according to Punch's Samuel Awoyinfa.

According to her, she avoided distractions on the campus, including having any romantic affair with any boy or men, attending parties and succumbing to peer pressure to indulge in frivolities.

She says, “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.

The 21yrs old graduate of Industrial Chemistry says the counselling she got from the Dean of her 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.”

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.”

Boluwatife is the fourth of Mr. and Mrs. Olusegun Oyekan’s six children. The mother is a nurse while the father works with an electrical company.