Just watched Adetoye Oremosu on youtube via this link


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ0PwJGBYnU

An excellent young man, that is making his country proud and proud to be from this country. It’s a tragedy that the likes of the kind of lecture he encountered at UI are scattered all over Nigeria Universities and Polytechnics’, damaging life’s they are ment to train and develop.
A Good thing he didn’t settle a failure when failed unjust fully, and he in turn is not doing the same to those behind him,but making a postive diffrence in his own little way.


My lecturer failed me for knowing more than him– Oremosu, UN Citizen Ambassador
By TOYOSI OGUNSEYE Sunday, 28 Nov 2010

Adetoye Oremosu is an engineer, a media expert and an author. Recently, he added another feather to his cap when became the United Nations Citizen Ambassador for Africa. It‘s however not been an easy journey to the top, he tells TOYOSI OGUNSEYE


After meeting Adetoye Oremosu in the United States of America recently, the United Nations

Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, could not hide his admiration for the 32-year-old man.



Ki-moon was not the only person captivated by Oremosu‘s passion. Anyone that has crossed the author‘s path will tell you that he is committed to his beliefs. Chief among them is that ”the dysfunctional educational system in Nigeria will continue to have a consequent negative impact on the Nigerian economy if not corrected.”



No wonder, the panel of judges at the United Nations could also not resist Oremosu‘s entry at the recent Citizen Ambassador video-contest. Oremosu simply ‘wowed‘ the audience with his presentation and became the first African ever to win the competition.



The engineer-author was researching a paper for a conference for the School of Media and Communication, Pan-African University, Victoria Island, Lagos, where he works, when he stumbled on the contest. He says, ”I was looking at the possibility of achieving the Millennium Development Goal in education with Pidgin English. While researching, I discovered the United Nations Citizen Ambassador competition and this was just about two weeks to the deadline. It took me about a week to put it together and I sent it in on the final day of the competition. The competition was about speaking to world leaders on the MDG in a two-minute creative video. Luckily, I won for Africa.”



One of the rewards of winning the contest was meeting Ki-moon, who the writer sees as his role model. Oremosu however says that the highpoint of the award is the platform he now has to champion his passions. He says, ”I am a teacher. I have inclinations towards proper education for economic growth. But with the current set of students that we have, I don‘t think that can happen. This is a matter of serious concern.”



Oremosu, who studied electrical/electronics engineering at the University of Ibadan, started preaching the message of self-development and social change to youths 15 years ago and firmly believes that Nigeria is a heaven. He says, ”I am bent on living in this country and making something out of it.”



The author‘s passion for education and political uprightness was further gingered after he had an extra year in the university. Talk about opportunity in adversity. According to him, that was a very low period of his life because people were surprised that he could repeat a year, considering his brilliance. He however says that he failed the course not because he did not know it but because he knew it better than his lecturer!



Hear him, ”It was a programming course and the lecturer was teaching us a very archaic version. In fact, my friends abroad could not believe it when I told them that that was what we were using at UI. Fortunately for me, I knew the newer version of the application and on the day of the exam, I answered the question with the more recent version. To my surprise, my lecturer failed me for that. I had to repeat a year and it was a very low period for me; but it also got me thinking that a lot of things are wrong with Nigeria‘s educational system.” That was (year).



The ugly experience with the lecturer was not the only unpleasant one Oremosu had at the Ivory Tower; he candidly tells you that the same practical tools he used in the laboratory were the same ones his mother used when she was in the same department.



He says, ”My mother finished from the same department in the same university and I used the same practical equipment that she used almost 30 years before I got into the same department. Nothing much had changed. Does that not tell you why we seem to lag behind?”



When he left UI (year), Oremosu practised as engineer for a few years and decided to study Media and Communications at the Pan African University. He believes that there is an ”artificial divide between the arts and the sciences,” and may even find himself studying medicine someday. He says with conviction, ”There is no limit to knowledge and what we can achieve as human beings. The human mind can accommodate so much. So, if tomorrow, I am thirsty for medical knowledge, off to the school of medicine I go.”



Oremosu believes that the reason young Nigerians don‘t read is because of the pervasive general lack of vision. He says, ”This is as a result of years of repression by vision-less leaders and corruption. I dare say, a larger percentage of the Nigerian rich got their wealth dubiously and these are the examples of success we have in our society. And really, you don‘t need to be well educated to be dubious. It‘s also because most people don‘t have a genuine vision for the communities they live in and so do not aspire for more than their belly/pocket.”



The UN Citizen Ambassador argues that because there are few readers, there will be few leaders. However, of the few readers, he says, even fewer know how to read meaningfully. ”It is always quite interesting to meet people who say they have read a book and they cannot discuss meaningfully what they have read or argue for or against the position of the author. Skills like critical reading are not really taught in our schools. Nigerian students are usually taught to learn by rote and cramming. This does not foster creativity at all. The system is so bad that in many cases, if students do not give an answer exactly the way the lecturer/teacher gave him, they are marked wrong whether or not they have provided a better answer or brought a creative bent to the question being answered.”



It is out of this understanding and desire for change that Oremosu has decided to create reading clubs among graduates, with a view to solving specific societal problems.



Apart from writing, his regular job and his ambassadorial duties, Oremosu says that politics is also a possibility. Without mincing words, he says, ”I am a believer in a new Nigeria and I am committed to being a player in its transformation

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20101128025251