FEMI TAIWO @ 30: Lessons in Selflessness (iii)

By Suraj Oyewale

Part 1: FEMI TAIWO @ 30: Lessons in Selflessness (i)

Part 2: FEMI TAIWO @ 30: Lessons in Selflessness (ii)

ENTER GREAT IFE…..

To keep me busy while I waited to resume at Ife, Femi, who was in the Faculty of Technology, went to the extent of getting from his Social Sciences/EDM room mates materials for courses offered in 100 level  Economics. He photocopied notes on SSC 101 (Sociology), SSC 105 (Mathematics for Social Sciences) and PHL 101 (Introduction to Philosophy) and got them across to me in Offa to be reading. He told me I needed to be comfortable in Further Mathematics to be able to cope with SSC 105. I didn’t do Further Math in my Secondary School (as a commercial student), but fired up by my performance in Math in WAEC and UME, I quickly engaged a teacher to put me through. Three weeks  with Mr. Afolabi was I needed to be able to do all those Differentiation and Integration needed to go face SSC 105. Thanks to Femi, I had finished three of  the courses I was to offer in first semester 100 level even before doing my registration.

Great Ife – graveyard of local champions

Femi did not stop at that. When I wheeled my bags into Ife campus on Wednesday, September 5, 2001, he, now in 200 level, was already waiting for me. He accommodated me for one week at his Awo Annex room and continued the motivation from where he stopped in secondary school. He taught me how to calculate GP, how to excel in Ife, how people rever academic high-flyers in Ife, and tales of super-brilliant students, and threw at me more materials. He also introduced me to another Economics Jambite he was mentoring.  He will tell Kemi, his church mate and my classmate, to make sure she tops the class and set the same target for me, his childhood friend and staunch Muslim. When I eventually got my own accommodation and left Femi’s room, I knew I can’t afford to disappoint this guy that had done so much for me. Anytime and anywhere we met on campus, Femi was always asking of my CGPA.

I was fired up, and to God be the glory, I garnered A in all but one course in my first year, a foundation that would be solid enough to see me make First Class when we graduated five years later ( he was studying a 5 year course, I a four year, so we graduated together despite he gaining admission one year earlier). When I entered Ife, graduating with First Class never crossed my mind, but with Femi’s orientation and enlightenment right from my first day on campus, I found myself graduating with one. Needless to say Femi also graduated with one himself.

FEMI AND HIS ‘COCOA HOUSE’ DREAMS

While JAMB was jamming students, Femi took the battle to JAMB, aiming to top JAMB’s UME in Nigeria

Femi is the tallest dreamer I have ever seen in my life. At a time I was always running away from him for the seemingly unattainable targets he set for himself and anybody around him. The last time a student made Aggregate 6 (i.e at least 6 A1s in WAEC) in our secondary school was 1988, but Femi went to that board one day and vowed he was to going to break that record. He did it. He not only finished top of our school, but was also emerged Best WAEC candidate in Kwara state for that year. When we wanted to write UME in 2000, he always told us that he wanted to have his name written at the back of JAMB UME brochure (meaning he wanted to be among Top 3 UME candidates in Nigeria). He didn’t make it, but he made 296 in that UME. Nobody had made 296 in UME in Nigeria before that year, but unfortunately for him that was also the first year someone (ten people actually) scored more than 300 in UME. So,  although he scored more than the reigning highest UME record, someone only scored higher that same year. These are the kinds of targets Femi set when we were in secondary school, and always setting for poor fellas like us. By the way, I also emerged the first commercial student that made Distinction Board in the school’s recent history.

His impossibility-breaking eye did not stop at Secondary school. When he entered Ife in 2000, he walked to the Faculty of Technology’s Board where names of Best faculty student each year were displayed. He looked up and said to himself, ‘I want to make this list when I graduate in 5 years’. He didn’t make it (no thanks to the equally ultra-hot Tech guys in Ife and the death of his Mum that affected his CGPA in year 2), but he not only made a First Class (CGPA north of 4.7 in a 5 point grade system), he also finished with a number of prizes and among the Top 5 students in the ultra-competitive Ife Faculty of Tech.

When we met at his sister’s place in Ajah in 2006 shortly after our graduation before NYSC, and he told me he wanted to get his PhD without Masters, I thought inside me, ‘this boy don come again, he no dey tire’. Well, the rest is history. Today, he holds a PhD without Masters, which he got before 29.

This is the long story of the man that instigated me. From primary school through secondary school to university, he held me by his hands in his ladder of success, despite my being far less talented academically.  He believed in me more than I do for myself. All these despite the fact that he is a Christian and I a practicing Muslim, and 11 months younger than I am. So when I opened this blog four months ago, I told him he must write for me. This is the man that will be 30 this week.

At Femi’s wedding in 2012. Left-Right: Myself, Femi, Yinka (my brother), and Busayo (another bossom friend).

LESSONS

The major lesson I learnt from Femi is selflessness. It was easy for Femi to mind his own business alone and never bothered about any other person, but he didn’t choose that path.

Another lesson is that, sometimes, it is another person that spots and drives your potential. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the capacity to make OGS Distinction Board or First Class in University, but I didn’t know I had the capacity. Somebody else saw it – or at least, following his hobby of helping people – and drove me to achieve the potential.

Also, like I mentioned earlier, Femi showed that propping another person to success doesn’t diminish your chance of success. You don’t lose anything. Some other person could have felt threatened and insecure. Despite pulling me that far, he is still the bigger achiever. He has PhD today, I don’t; he works in Shell Houston, I don’t work in an IOC.

Femi’s humongous influence on me shaped my outlook about trying to assist other people achieve their potential.  Far back year 2 in the university, I found myself motivating my juniors, giving advice and sharing useful information and experience. I spent more time passionately taking tutorials in Ife, as well as advising fresh students every year. I carved a father figure to my juniors and I thank God some of them also finished Ife in flying colours. It was also that spirit of sharing teachable experience that drove my floating this blog.

Looking back, after God almighty, the next non-family person that has the biggest impact in my modest academic run (which is the precursor to my career) is Femi Taiwo. You can then forgive me for sparing no superlative to appreciate this gentleman as he clocks 30. Happy Birthday, Femi.