One day, Adenike Adamolekun, executive director, Supreme  Educational Foundation, SEF, wept. It baffled people around her because she had set out from her office that day in good spirits to donate computerised interactive boards and generator that will power it to Community Primary School, not far from where her educational establishment is located in Magodo, Lagos. Her happy mien that morning arose from her ability to fulfill a promise she made to herself after noticing students from poor homes looking through the gates of the school to see elite environment of her school. Her enquiries led her to the discovery that they were from a nearby public school so, she resolved to contribute to the upliftment of the school.

But, her happiness gave way to sorrow as soon as she arrived at the school. The school was decrepit. “There were leaking roofs, no furniture for both pupils and their teachers, there was absolutely nothing,” she said. So, she pulled down the bad roofs and changed the brown and falling ceilings, plastered the walls and painted them. New floors were also laid to cover the deep holes in the floor. Not just that, she donated furniture to be used by the students and the teachers.

Adamolekun went beyond contributing to the physical development of the school. She quietly awarded scholarships to some of the less-privileged children. Also, she mandated the teachers in her school to make rotational teaching excursions to the community school weekly in order to make them imbibe better educational values.

Why does she do all these? “My prayer has always been that God may bless me so I can always be a blessing to others. That’s why one is blessed in the first instance,” she said.

Alimi Olanrewaju Amodu is an exceptional student.  He graduated from Lagos State University, LASU, with a second class honours degree in Sociology at age 75.

Pa Amodu, reverently but fondly called “the youngest student” and “Baba Bookworm” by his fellow students during his undergraduate years, had a lifelong dream to be garbed in convocation outfit and to pose with a scroll in his hand as graduates are wont to do on graduation day. But he was too poor to achieve this aim. He scraped to obtain a Standard Six certificate and with that worked briefly with University College, Hospital, UCH, and for the rest of his career with Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, where he made some career advancements with foreign trips before he retired.

In-between those periods, there were interruptions like marriage and the responsibilities of keeping a home and raising children that prevented him from pursuing his dream. But in retirement, he could afford to do so. So, he did.

Amodu is not sated yet.  He plans to return to school to get Masters and PhD. Afterwards, he wants to set up a primary school at Oniyangi, his village, in Oluyole local government area of Oyo State.

Nigeria is only a force in world affairs when crude  oil  is  being  mentioned.  But  when  the countryattempt to work towards technologically advancement, then, it will have Emem Andrew, 38, to work with.  The young scientist recently distinguished herself as a student of the 2010 class of the NASA-backed Singularity University, NASA Research Centre, California, US, after her selection as one of the six carefully-chosen Africans to join 80 other students from 1,600 global applicants for admission to the university.

Singularity University, SU, was created by Google and NASA among many other high technology-based companies to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

Andrew left her job at Shell in search of her purpose in life which she was unable to articulate. “But I was able to find my path.” She advocates that oil’s dominance in world’s reckoning would soon fade to be replaced by solar energy which is readily abundant in Africa.

Part of SU’s aim is to affect positively the lives of one billion people through its fellows and Andrew is already giving talks to make technology more appealing to the young people.