Following an article by Segun O'Law, a media entrepreneur and student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), suggesting that the recent 5.0 maximum CGPA scorer, Ayodele Dada be honored symbolically by major a academic institute in the country, students of UNILAG have begun to key into the demand, asking JAMB make the suggested deal as prove that hard work in academic truly pays.

O'Law suggested that the deal will be renewable by emergence of another record breaker, which he said will serve as an encouragement factor to attract youths back pursuit of excellence in their academics.

O'Law had similarly suggested in his article that UNILAG names one of its lecture halls after Ayodele Dada.

Read full article below:

Ayodele Dada And The "Hard Work" Gospel by Segun O'Law

Dada Ayodele1
By Segun O'Law

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Father: You have to make excellent results in your academics because hard work pays.

Son: Looool!!!

Father: Take me seriously, young man.

Son: Ok dad. We talk later.

***Curtain falls***

We have been around, a while now, and seen realities differently from the idealistic moral sermons. I will lucidly disappoint the prevalent manners of pretense and so will not join the deception, that amidst richly thick putrid social idiosyncrasies, the principles of moral ideals are flourishing. No.

But if you insist, then like that son in the above hypothetical scenario, I say Loool!!! Just to avoid needless arguments in the now, and then say we see again, by when the realities have dawned on you.

Lol. It soothes to relieve oneself of the barrage emotional strains associated with institutional disappointments, using mild and momentary laughter. As my personal therapy, laughing-out-loudly helps me against falling and dying for the traps of institutional hypocrisies. It subdues the enduring burdens of the now, while conserving my nerves to withstand other impending shocks of yet unfolding societal disasters.

You know, life is comedy to those that think, and tragedy to those that feel. I combine the two; think and feel, then I strike the cushioning balance. It is my principled equilibrium and so for empathy, I feel; while for purpose of evocative discharge of regretful incidences, I make the momentary interludes of mild laughter. Simply think through the myriad monumental problems championed by institutional deceptions and then lightly feel the agony experienced by the deceived adherents, while on my own, I find what is the LCM from reality.

Now, if you say "Hard Work Pays" and then you take academics as yardstick, common sense (not the Ben Bruce type) demands that I look around for examples. If our society is littered with many poor graduates but several rich uneducated folks, then that gospel is self-inadequate. As we continue to produce more disappointed fellas from school without corresponding outcome for the efforts invested, the message itself becomes really scary, and scaring the future.

In the instance where brilliance at school is rewarded with temporary conference of applauses and expired rhetorics, yet conversely, the transient pageants of entertainments are rewarded with gainful endorsements, deals and trips, we have consciously enthroned the latter to attract more adherents to the detriment of hard work in academics. Pageants and entertainments have consequently built an industry while the institutions of academics are merely existing to prepare people for the pageant-industry without other solid alternatives. Entertainment is good; but academic is suffering for it, and we allowed it to be so.

From very tender age, we were given a false impression that folks with lazy or poor academics habits would be inferior to the brilliant students by future. Most became very studious for this doctrine but grew up to see the opposite as reality.

Certain satirical post was widely shared recently in the social media, drawing up an awkward hierachy of social roles. In the depiction, a first class graduate would end up as a potential employee, he would be hired by another who had ordinary pass from school. And then, a secondary school certificate holder had joined politics and is now sitting at the business of making laws to regulate both the first class graduate and his employer. Then, miserably, the primary school dropouts become militants and regulate all of them, including the Government.

Without any basis to pretend, there is an ultimate central core to the diverse routes everyone is taking; whether education, artisanship, warfare, trading, industry, entertainment or other endeavors. First, man must survive. Next, he'd want to add value. And then to other missions.

You cannot add value if you cannot first survive. No. Not possible.

This society is profusely bleeding from the denial of reality that our potentials are being greatly lost due to absence of adequate system of motivations for the values we want to keep. I know lot of archaic theory-baked scholars would argue that you don’t need to be motivated to do what you want, but it is unarguably difficult to keep people on a track that has no promising end. However, their theories are different from the realities starring us in the face in our society. Realities are dynamic, and the dynamism is a demystifier of archaic theories.

I relate with example of the Beauty Versus Brain controversy that oozed out of UNILAG, recently. A young female student emerged winner of a rigorous debate competition and got a laptop with N50,000 (fifty thousand Naira) cash prize. Few days after it, another lady emerged Beauty Queen from a Miss UNILAG pageant on same campus and was given a car, unannounced total cash prize and endorsement deals all running into millions of Naira.

It is not difficult therefore to understand the accompanying spike in the rate that UNILAG babes increased their investments on beauty products while on the inverse are cutting down efforts in their studies. This makes for a corresponding increase in their body-figure obsession, against an expected improvement on academic endeavors. And this, curiously, is not only affecting the babes population, but also the bobo’s. Buy books, for what? Who book epp?

Asides from "Who book pep?”, students now have several slangs for dismissing the admonitions; “free me jor”; “ko kan aye” and so on.

They are not wrong, it is how the society has been structured. While there will be very few examples of those who maintain their heads, it is not excuse for the society to open floodgate for the loss of greater percentage escaping from academic commitments to search for other promising ventures.

In a different example, we saw how former Super Eagles soccer stars embarrassingly became objects of negative media scoops. Mother of Rashidi Yekini is retailing pieces of bread to survive in Ilorin; Femi Opabunmi begging for money to eat in Ibadan, and so on. They are all very embarrassing. The argument that people should do their beats just from passion or patriotism is being callously applied to subject our best hands to harsh treatments.

If your passion is not paying, there is going to be a problem.

I once told a gathering of activists that the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi was able to work his mission (without compromise) because he wasn't poor. He had legitimate means of constant income and was able to meet both his immediate and extended needs, and then was able to move on to accomplishing his other philanthropical goal. So, let’s bury the idea that you must be poor because you’re an activist. No. Poverty should not be synonymous with good intention, passion o patriotism. It leads you to fatal compromise. If you must be like Gani, you can not be poor. Get a legitimate means of adequate income first. You must take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Otherwise, it will not end well.

Anyways, I digressed. So, I go back to my academic hard-work-pays rant.

The more recent example of the Hard Work Pays in academics is the emergence of Mr. Ayodele Dada who graduated with a CGPA of 5.0 on the full scale from UNILAG. That record is said to be the first in 54 years. It’s indeed symbolic. That means the young man made all A’s in all the courses he took from his first year on the campus to the final year. No single "B" grade, isn’t it? Yea, so that’s a feat, especially a 54 year record.

Without being immodest, from that moment on, Ayodele Dada has become a local deity in Academics. Hence, just as the religious practitioners imagine the face of a super being while they pray, the face of Ayodele Dada has become an unconscious symbol of academic spiritism for the wannabes.

Although I know Ayodele Dada in person, we scarcely conversed. Last time we really spoke was while he was being received by members of the Federal House of Representatives in Abuja. Next, we spoke about the offers he got after his record-breaking feat, his accommodation issue and the rest. So, my outing here is totally independent of his concern, it’s just one of my personal frequencies of unsolicited soliloquy. He is not complaining, am the one that has curiosities.

If an artiste “blows” with a hit single and gets endorsements, becomes ambassador for one or few products, production contracts, all expense-paid trips abroad and other sumptuous offers -from one hit single - shouldn’t that be lesser than the academic hard-work-pays we had been attending school to get since birth?

If one popular football game fetches you advert contract running into millions and which is renewable every year, should the academic that had taken all your youthful years be aback?

If a model keeps getting contracts, deals and ambassadorial endorsements just being discovered from a photo-bomb somewhere in Agege, what justification is there for a bookworm that spent largest proportion of his life studying in the Primary, Secondary, A Level and Tertiary Institution(s)?

I have no tolerance for arguments supporting this stagnation. We can’t continue the game of pretense. If you bring a Wizkid to UNILAG for 15minutes performance and bring a Professor of Economics on same day to another hall on same campus to speak for 15mins on the solutions to Nigeria’s economic quagmire, whether both times coincide or not, give both events same level of publicity and infarct, make the Professor’s event free and Wizkid’s performance be at a fee, then come and see which one has the largest attendance. Remember the venue is a campus and an academic environment with mainly students population. I don’t have to give answer on which event will have the largest crowd, it is self testifying. Infarct, Wizkid’s bouncers will have all the works to do, clearing the road for the kid before and after his short performance.

Of course, the pomp and circumstance, exhibition of rewards in his trade and aura of wealth by the entertainment celebrities are the attractive factors impressing their crowd. It make you happy because it pays. Most of the spectators merely want to see what latest expensive fashion bling-bling the kid performer would be wearing to campus and the story of how much millions in Naira or Dollars he has newly hit in new record deals. It is practically rewarding, so there are increasingly more Wizkid wannabes, everyday.

But come to the arena of academics, after years of sojourning the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education, you are enrolled in a national service, which is now being lampooned as “Now Your Suffering Continues”, you are freed into another world of uncertainty to look for job in the dry. Nothing is so disgusting as completing your education only to be released into a world of uncertainty. But let’s consider an example of situation where exemplariness is treated with adequacy.

Say for example, Ayodele Dada broke such a historic record, and beginning from UNILAG, even if no financial incentive is attached, there are some enduring symbolic objects done in honor of this feat. As in, name a popular hall after him or a sculpture of him placed at a conspicuous location on the campus -symbolic depictions to buttress the cliche of Hard-Work-Pays.

Even examination bodies in the country, say JAMB or NECO strikes a deal, making him an ambassador of academic excellence. Let his face be on either or both of the application and result-checking scratch cards and pay him some fee for this meritorious endorsement. Readily, Ayodele Dada has good face, doesn’t look as radical, gentle and would be good example of “obedience” that institutions always want from students.

Or come to think that his name is on the examination instruction guides each time students are to write WAEC or NECO. So, examination candidates will see Ayodele Dada’s name in the specimen guiding them how they should answer questions. They may not be able to relate with a Chukwu or Ciroma they didn't really know. Ayodele Dada is a recent example that symbioses academic achievement and candidates will definitely want to replicate his example by studying and working hard. That way, we may be able to motivate and attract youngsters back to the lane of academic hard works.

Enough of losing our best hands to foreign economy. Brain drain is also caused by not appreciating or giving the best treatment to those with potentials here. By now, Ayodele Dada should no longer belong to himself. This society should treat him properly so even if he goes abroad to further his education, there would be symbols of motivation from our treatment of him that will encourage him to return to put his service for his Nation.

We may begin to genuinely prove that hard work pays by putting more incentives in the few excellent achievements from the terrain, not leaving the achievers to themselves and making the mantra a mere quotable quote for children’s rote learning.

Segun O'Law is a media entrepreneur based in Lagos.

Twitter: @segun_olawoye

I cannot deny, the OP is right shaa... They didn't give the nigg a lot of money and fixing his potrait on the JAMB scratch card is quite honorary. Besides, i feel the guy's achievements were underrated Many people on NL were downplaying the 5.0 GPA thing

but arent there student from other uni with such feat

Olopolopipe

@op just to buttress your point, you ve garnered only 2 comments so far.

What ayodele achieved was for himself. Nigeria or Jamb didn't get any glory from it. So it's unwise to try to cajole them to honor him.

Ayodele is yet to capitalize on his popularity to seek for more educational support or similar cause... Humanity has not felt anything... Or benefited.

So if ayodele will have his face there, he needs to do more.

Oh! And OP, you're the only one asking for this. Usig 'Students' is deceitful.

Long article, I'm sure you can't read that twice!
abegi.

Nonsense.......

Princealex1:
but arent there student from other uni with such feat

Pls names of pple with such feat and this aint abt skul,the OP just made valuable points abt recognizing and appreciating educational feats other than the roadside bread seller and peagents winners getting endorsement and becoming faces of brands,wats wrong with being the face an educational body and source of inspiration for younger ones.

put olajumoke's picture jor or the dapper windscreen cleaner!

@op it's too long to read joor. Subsidize it

Princealex1:
but arent there student from other uni with such feat

no mind those guys saying thrash.
There are so many graduates who excelled through with outstanding and flying grades same as the unilag guy.
This guy has just been overhyped

VocalWalls:
What ayodele achieved was for himself. Nigeria or Jamb didn't get any glory from it. So it's unwise to try to cajole them to honor him.

Ayodele is yet to capitalize on his popularity to seek for more educational support or similar cause... Humanity has not felt anything... Or benefited.

So if ayodele will have his face there, he needs to do more.

Oh! And OP, you're the only one asking for this. Usig 'Students' is deceitful.

I don't know why people celebrate self success , even bill gates & mark never dea inside America dollars.. ayodele has never done anything to improve humanity , his knowledge is as useless has hell if he can't use it to improve his country and the world at large

WarRLaY:
I don't know why people celebrate self success , even bill gates & mark never dea inside America dollars.. ayodele has never done anything to improve humanity , his knowledge is as useless has hell if he can't use it to improve his country and the world at large

He couldn't even pay his house rent...

maestromedal:
Pls names of pple with such feat and this aint abt skul,the OP just made valuable points abt recognizing and appreciating educational feats other than the roadside bread seller and peagents winners getting endorsement and becoming faces of brands,wats wrong with being the face an educational body and source of inspiration for younger ones.

what i post can easily be mistaken as hating since its just a post but what spawn it was my thought of in a case where there are 7 or more graduate with such feat dont you think that would make jamb scratch card look like a passport catalogue? y not each school have a hall of fame to immortalise these people for generations to come

If you never had a 5.0 gp click like.

Haters.

That's an almost impossible feat. The guy should be recognised. A point UN time cane in his life when his battle cry was I won't get a B.

Niggas who prayed for C are here braying.

Bleep off player haters.

He deserves it and more.

K

I tell u its super but not special.people make this everdday in UK , us.the guy is lucky to have good lecturers who did not begrudge him a 5 .0

Nice