Michael Eromhonsele sacrificed romance for excellence
and emerged the best graduating student of Covenant University in Ota, Ogun
State at 20, SAMUEL AWOYINFA reports
Twenty-year-old Eromhonsele Michael was the cynosure of
all eyes at the eighth graduation ceremony of the Covenant University, Ota,
Ogun State, on Friday. He was the best graduating student of the institution.
To achieve this feat, he obtained a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.92, out
of a possible 5.0, to beat 1,465 other undergraduates.
He says his first few days in the university campus
were uneventful. According to him, he was a bit confused because he was not
used to the prayer regime that he had to be part of at the faith-based
institution. Spirituality is one of the core values of CU. But as soon as he found his rhythm, there was
no looking back for him.
He says he did not allow himself to be distracted by
his friends or the opposite sex as he concentrated on his studies.
Listing some of the factors that helped him to achieve
that feat, he says, “First, I must acknowledge God’s favour and his assistance.
Second, I did not entertain any form of distractions. I did not attend parties,
and I did not have any girlfriend or what you may refer to as a lover. I
concentrated on my studies.”
What about his study style? Eromhonsele reveals that
apart from the serene environment in the school, which is conducive for
learning, he loves to read late into the night.
According to him, he started reading from 10.00pm and
he won’t stop until 1.00am.
“Those are the hours I found most convenient to read.
As soon as I closed my book, I went to bed. I woke up at 7.00am, and got ready
for my classes. Lectures start at 8.00am,” he adds.
Apart from being the best overall student, he was also
the best in the College of Science and Technology where he studied Civil
Engineering.
Eromhonsele, who is his parents’ second child, explains
that they contributed in no small measure to whatever success he recorded in
the university. He stresses that they constantly reminded him of his background
and they advised him not to lose focus.
Eromhonsele had his primary school at the University of
Benin Staff School, while he attended both University of Benin Demonstration
Secondary School and Greater Tomorrow Secondary School for his junior and
senior secondary school education.
“My parents were very supportive. They always reminded
me of the home I’m from, and they also urged me to take my studies seriously,”
he notes.
He explains that his mother, Charity Eromhonsele, is a
business woman, while the father, Gabriel Eromhonsele, a civil engineer runs a
consulting firm in Benin, Edo State. He says his father is a native of Igueben.
Apart from his parents, Eromhonsele did not lose sight
of the contributions of his lecturers, who, he says, impacted him throughout
his stay in the institution. Their pieces of advice, he adds, went a long way
in shaping his outlook on life.
Talking about the lesson he’s taking away from the CU,
Eromhonsele says he’s learnt that “the people one surrounds himself with in
life will determine how far one will go.”
Again, he advises that there is no future without God,
and that he has learnt to put Him first in everything he does.
After obtaining a first degree, what next for
Michael? Beaming with smiles, he says,
“I have already got admission to University of Surrey in the United kingdom to
read Structural Engineering for my Master’s degree. I chose this particular
course because I feel the need to improve on the structural aspects of
construction works.”
Eromhonsele is already missing his teachers and friends
as he confesses, “Definitely, I miss my friends and the lecturers, most
especially my course supervisors. But I am happy, it is for good.”
The eighth convocation event was not all about Michael
alone. A total of 1,466 students graduated during the event tagged Release of
Eagles 2013. The breakdown showed that 114 made first class, 720 made second
class upper, 565 obtained second class lower division, while 67 were in the
third class category.
The Chancellor of the CU, Bishop David Oyedepo, while
delivering his address, identified leadership as the greatest challenge facing
the 21st Century Africa.
While he said that leadership was not an endowment but
a commitment to the future, he noted that leadership “is an art that must be
continuously and intelligibly developed.”
Oyedepo, who spoke under the theme, ‘Living the
Covenant Dream – Our Leadership Development Mandate,’ explained that the
mandate of the university was a commitment to promoting the man-child model of
education aimed at making men out of children, provoking accelerated maturity
intellectually and emotionally.
He stressed,
“The thrust of our vision is to create leadership imbued with strong character.
We want to build people of depth, a revolutionary army of intellectual giants,
a people to be envied, young men and women in pursuit of vision, driving with
unquenchable passion, countless exploits in every direction, a people of honour
set to take the world by storm.”
Oyedepo, who advised the graduating students to soar in
their respective fields, said they were taught that leadership was taking the
lead, setting the pace and blazing the trail in one’s field.
He added, “Leadership is not occupying a seat; it is
accomplishing a feat. It is not occupying a position; it is making outstanding
contributions. It is not occupying a place; it is setting a pace.”
He observed that
the country was “full of ‘expert analysts’
of our multi-faceted problems, but we lack expert solution providers.”
Oyedepo, therefore, said the country needed the right
kind of education that could raise the right kind of leaders, and promote the
right kind of values.
In his keynote address, the Minister of Power, Prof.
Chinedu Nebo, advised the graduands to make the right choices, as the choices
they make could make or mar their future.
He pointed out that the people they surround themselves
with, the place they choose to start their career and where they live, among
others, matter.
“Success is
about choices. My message to you is to be careful, diligent and strategic in
those choices, as they will set the trajectory for your life,” Nebo added.
He told them to be transformational leaders who would
take the country to the next level of development.
Speaking earlier on the convocation lecture titled
Repositioning African universities for excellence: Theory and practical
perspectives, a former Executive Secretary, National Council for Tertiary
Education, Ghana, Dr. Paul Effah, identified lack of commitment to a functional
differentiated system or institutional segmentation as a major difficulty
facing higher education in Africa.
He noted that emphasis had been placed on grammar type
of education to the detriment of technical, vocational education and training.
Besides, Effah said, another problem was the near
neglect of science and technology.
He said, “This is not unexpected, as most of the educational
systems in anglophone Africa were modelled after the British tradition which
frowned on TVET and career-focused training. It is common to find many senior
high school graduates trooping to the universities for admission, while
student-places high in TVET institutions remained unoccupied.”
Effah stressed that the development was due largely to
the social status and image associated with university education. Quoting Lord
Bowden, he said, “Universities were seen as centres of privilege with very
little to do with industry, commerce and society.”
He advised African universities not to be just relevant
to the community in which they exist, but also focus on their mandate and seek
excellence in what they have been enjoined to do and translate this into raising
the standard of living and general conditions of the people.
Describing research as a core function of a university,
Effah said many universities in Africa had failed to meet their standard
requirement on publications.
He said a recent study by the Centre for Higher
Education Transformation in South Africa, undertaken in eight flagship
universities in Africa, revealed that in terms of publications, only University
of Cape Town achieved a ratio of one article per lecturer per year.
He added, “At the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan
University, the ratio was one article per academic every three years. At
Makerere in Uganda, the ratio was one article per academic in five years. At
the other universities, including those in Ghana, each academic was likely to
publish, on average, only one article every 10 or more years.”
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Ayo, who said
spirituality was the arrowhead of the institution’s seven core values, added
that last year, after the 10th anniversary of the university, it got a mandate
from the Board of Regents to get CU listed among the top 10 universities in the
world within the next 10 years.
This, he stressed, they had christened “1 of 10 in 10.”
He said, “To make CU one of the best universities in
the world, we have toured some renowned universities in the US and the UK to
adopt some best practices in our operations. We are collaborating with them in
terms of faculty and student exchange, joint research collaboration and joint
degrees at both graduate and postgraduate levels.”
He said to achieve this feat, the institution’s
concerted efforts within the next five years would include improving
infrastructural facilities and quality teaching, exhaustively reviewing its
curricula, pursuing further collaborations and linkages with renowned
universities and improving the university’s Webometric ranking, among others
