Rita Aladi, 20, leads nine other females in sweeping academic laurels at the fourth convocation of the Caleb University in Imota, Lagos. Punch's Charles Abah writes:
Two things occupied the mind of the 20-year-old best graduating student of the Caleb University, Miss Rita Aladi, as she mounted the podium to deliver her valedictorian speech.
The first had to do with the burden of how she eventually graduated from the university. The second is on how she eventually topped the list of the 2014 graduating class. For her, the sum total of all that took place on the convocation day was a nice surprise.
She said, "I almost dropped out of school in my final year due to financial difficulties. That I eventually graduated from this school is a miracle. It came to a point that my father had to come to appeal to the authorities to give him some grace period to enable him to pay my fees.
"Beyond this, I never knew that I could become the best graduating student. Throughout my primary and secondary education, I never came first. But I had never gone below the third position in any class."
Rita Aladi's display on the podium aptly captured this element of surprise. Intermittently, she screamed ewoooo, muttered God oooo, while she yet punctuated her speech with sobbing.
The youngster, who bagged a first class in Biochemistry, posted a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.80 out of 5.0 points to emerge the overall best in the 2014 convocation of the university. For her excellence, she received several awards, including 'The Most Outstanding Student of the Year' and the 'Best Graduating Student in the College of Pure and Applied Sciences'.
According to the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Ayodeji Olukoju, she is also the first to obtain a first class from the department of Biochemistry.
She said, "I did not plan to be the best graduating student but I told myself that I needed to compensate my parents for their commitment to my education. They were always there for me in spite of the difficult times that they faced."
She noted that as at the time she got admission to the school, her father was a buoyant entrepreneur, though her mother was a trader. However, things became tough for the father, who was running a bakery and a filling station.
She further said, "Also, the advice from our Dean, Prof. Sunday Ajayi, any time he had the opportunity of talking to us, helped me a lot. He always challenged us to aim higher in life. Again, because I made a first class grade in my first year, I was under this immense pressure of maintaining that height. Though I obtained that grade all through the subsequent years, I never looked forward to becoming the best graduating student. In all frankness, I never thought of it."
On what she intends to do after her National Youth Service, the valedictorian said she did not have an idea yet. "I shall return to the university to study either in Nigeria or overseas but I do not know yet what course I will pursue at the postgraduate level," she explained, brimming with a touch of innocence.
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