Prof.Biodun Oni with some of the students
A university leader, Professor Abiodun Oni and his wife, Bolatan, last week gave out
educational and studying materials to forty-two exceptional students of the two public
secondary schools in Esa Oke.
The awardees, carefully selected from Esa Oke Grammar School and Saint Joseph’s
High School, incidentally, both Alma mater of the Professor of Political science, were
rewarded for their brilliant performances in the last academic session.
The professor of political science told a combined assembly of the students of
the Esa Oke Grammar School and Saint Joseph High School, both in the town, that
all “the award winners will not only be clapped for, but will be presented with relevant
educational and reading materials henceforth”.
He urged the award winners “allowed this gesture to encourage you, so that you can
maintain the high standard next year, while others shall be struggling to displace you”.
This, according to the Professor “should bring about healthy competition among the
students”.
On Tuesday, July 22, Oni with his wife, Bolatan, doled out academic and study
materials to the 42 students drawn from both secondary schools.
An elated Professor Oni declared at the occasion that “today 42 students will go home
with academic materials that will be helpful to both our students and their parents”.
He said further that “it will be a financial relief to some parents who may share
some characteristics with my late mother. My mother could not afford to buy neither
pencil nor biro for me. So some of you whose parents are in the category of mine,
you need not go to labour on the farm to buy some materials”.
He told the gathering that “this award becomes necessary because l am a product of
academic excellence too”
He stated that right from his primary school days at St Peter’s to St Joseph Modern
school, Esa Oke, “our rewards were always recognized at the schools’ assembly
through clapping and hailing by our colleagues”.
However, he stated that these recognitions by clapping went a long way to make him
a professor today, saying because it has always been my intention to receive another
round of applause at the end of the year that usually gingered me to read more.
He promised the students that the era of clapping for academic award winners in the
high schools in Esa Oke was over.