Dipo Kehinde/
Saturday, October 22, 2023, was a day of fulfilled dreams for 1459 graduates and 209 postgraduate students who assembled on the campus of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) for the 14th Founders Day celebration and 11th convocation of the Institution.
Among the graduates was Dr Oyindamola Olaoye who just bagged his PhD in Biochemistry, a dream that was inspired in his first year in secondary school, when he had a chance meeting with Professor Sola Adeyeye, a Nigerian biologist and politician who served as Senator for the Osun Central constituency of Osun State.
Dami, as he is fondly called, was in Form 1 at the Unity School, Ejigbo, when he traveled to Osun State for his mid-term holiday. He stayed at the Osun State Government House under the care of Chief Bisi Akande, the state governor.
During a visit to the government house, Prof Adeyeye was talking about his childhood, how a teacher assisted him in his studies, and when he returned from the US, he was trying to locate the teacher. The teacher had told him that he should not stop his studies until he bags his doctorate degree. He said that he believed in him, that he could make it.
Dami overheard Prof. Adeyeye talking about his professorship, and he asked his journalist mum, Mrs. Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu, who was there what it would take to be a professor. He said that he would like to be one. Before the mother could provide an answer, Prof. Adeyeye who overheard them asked what was going on. The mum said he wanted to know more about professorship. Then Prof Adeyeye had a conversation with him. He told Dami to be focused on his studies, and that whatever he set his mind on, he could achieve it. From that time on Prof Adeyeye started calling him Little Professor.
“That was how he started being very studious, staying up late at night,” Mrs. Olaoye-Osinkolu told NewsmakersNG.
Dami eventually followed Prof Adeyeye’s path and studied Biochemistry. He graduated First Class at ABUAD, a leading University in Nigeria. Then, his Head of Department asked him not to go and work, and that he should return to school and do his Master’s. So, ABUAD employed him as an assistant lecturer back then. They gave him a staff quarters while he was doing his masters. His service was upgraded when he was done with the Master’s.
Like Prof Adeyeye who earned a PhD at the University of Georgia and later became a Professor of Biology at Duquesne University, Dami has earned a PhD in Biochemistry (Molecular Biology & Biotechnology). He had bagged a Distinction in Biochemistry at his MSc level, and a First-Class Honors in Biochemistry at BSc level. On Saturday, he was the best PhD graduating student.
Interestingly, Prof Adeyeye’s wife, Prof Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, who is NAFDAC DG, is a Professor of Pharmaceutics.
Also like his role model, Prof Adeyeye, who had won the Presidential Award as the most Innovative – State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Chairman in Nigeria in 2009, Dr Oyindamola Olaoye, a Graduate Research Fellow at IITA and Graduate Research Fellow at AfricaRice Center, is a 4-time winner of the Founder’s Day Merit Scholarship at ABUAD from 2011 to 2014. He had also been honored as an IARSAF Research Scholar of the Week at IITA, West Africa Hub in 2023. In 2020, he bagged the ABUAD Alumni Golden Award of Excellence in recognition of his contributions to the association, and the Award of Excellence from NABS – ABUAD Chapter in 2018-2019, and he was honored as the Most Supportive Lecturer by the National Association of Biochemistry Students (NABS – ABUAD Chapter).
In his childhood, Dami won the MUSON Under 10 National Award for Fine Art in 2002 as well as the best student award at the Eko International School, in Lagos.
“I recall explaining sequencing cuticular proteins of soft ticks to the young lad and why it was necessary to use mRNA probes.
“I was in Primary 4 at St. Stephen’s School, Ọ̀ra Ìgbómìnà, when my teacher, J. T. Soyemi, a native of Ikire, gave me one shilling after extracting a promise from me that I would obtain a PhD degree. Life threw sundry obstacles in my path but my promise to Mr. Soyemi ceaselessly nagged my mind. God is mysterious about the influence we can have.
“May God bless Dami. May He flourish like a tree planted by the riverside,” Prof. Adeyeye told NewsmakersNG.
During the graduation ceremony at ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola admonished young Nigerians not to relegate education to the background with politics taking center stage.
The legal icon and ABUAD founder recounted his experience with a first-class graduate who turned down further education after a master’s degree because he saw a secondary school colleague who didn’t go to a higher institution achieve material success in politics.
“I was the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, and a young man came out with first class in Chemistry and had the highest score that year. I called him and said, ‘I am going to give you a scholarship to do your master’s.
“He was very happy, and he agreed; he passed his masters. I had forgotten all about him, then he came in and said, ‘Sir, thank you for the scholarship given to me’ and I said ‘Yes, proceed to your Ph.D.’ and he said ‘No’ and I said ‘Why?’
He said, ‘My colleague who was in class with me in secondary school did not go to university; he is the chairman of the local government of my place. He is riding a car; he has a house.’ I was depressed.
“I said, ‘What do you want to do now?’ He said, ‘I want to go into politics.’ I wept inside me. That is what your country has made of Nigeria. The only business in this country today which is lucrative is politics,” Aare Babalola said.
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Congratulations Darmi….