How my father failed me in letter writing —Aribisala

Professor Benjamin Aribisala is the Vice Chancellor, Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu, Osun State.
He shares his life’s story with SEGUN KASALI.

Your father prioritised education despite being a polygamist.

Yes. The truth is that my dad believed so much in education just like an average Ekiti man. It was a family of one husband, two wives and 14  children. So, it is party everyday when we eat because you have to cook for 14 people (laughs). In the United Kingdom, that is a party, because you have 14 people to eat together. My mum and dad were very hard working. My dad is an agriculturist by training as he had a degree in Agricultural Science and mummy was not educated but doing business. So, they worked together to train us. Dad is dead but mum is still alive.  In fact, two of us are professors by the grace of God. So, It is either education or nothing. And the man told us that if you fail WAEC, you are on your own. So, you have to work really hard to pass WAEC. And he would always say to us that the first thing is education while every other thing, becomes secondary. So, I received a lot of motivation. My dad taught me English Language.

How, sir?

Okay. My dad loved writing a lot. So, he would wake up in the middle of the night to write letters. He was an high chief, interested in the people. So, one day I went to the toilet and I saw him reading. And I have seen him do this so many times. So, I had to beckon on him that ‘I am preparing for WAEC’ and asked him ‘can you wake me up anytime you are doing your stuff so that I can study’? He did that and so we became study mates. To the glory of God, I was very good at Mathematics. So, in order for him to know how good I am at English language, he asked me to write a letter. You know all these informal and formal letters. So, I wrote a letter and surprisingly the man scored me one out of 10. And I was preparing for WAEC. So, I said to myself ‘I am in trouble if I could score one out of 10 and I am preparing for WAEC’.

What did he do then?

So, he said ‘now I need to start to teach you’. He would wake me up and teach me in the middle of the night- structure, concord, and the like. And I started to build. So, by the time I scored seven out of 10 in letter writing, he handed off and told me you are now okay. As a result, I thank God I made distinction in English language in WAEC.

It must have been difficult.

You know he had 14 of us. So, some of my seniors were in the university already. But, the truth is that I did not enjoy every bit, especially waking up in the middle of the night. And when everyone was going for parties, I was not allowed. So, I had to stay and study every time. But, I coped because I am someone who loves knowledge. The stress was much because he wanted you to be high up there. I wanted to read Medicine and that made me really work hard based on his counsel. My dad was a high chief and so many people would come to our house for his advice. So, he had built in us the need to make education a priority. That was kind of motivational. Even though I was stressed, I was keen looking forward, into the future. To an extent, I enjoyed it and sometimes I did not like it. But, I think that helped me greatly when I had to go to the United Kingdom to study.

You eventually studied Medicine?

No. You know you have to meet certain score in JAMB. So, my score was not enough to for Medicine. There was one of my uncles who came home and said ‘how is Segun doing? Has he done JAMB’? My dad said yes that Segun wanted to study Medicine but his JAMB score was below the cut-off. So, what should we do? The man said but you told me he is good in Mathematics and my dad said yes. He then said ‘can he enrol for Maths’? My dad said ‘I don’t think so’. My uncle now said rather than stay at home, he should go to Ekiti State University which was then Ondo State University to study Mathematics. That was how I found myself in Mathematics. But the truth is that my desire to do Medicine was because my dad wanted me to do it. But, within me, I preferred Mathematics.

How come you so love Mathematics?

I want to say a number of things. One, it is in the blood. Two, I enjoy numeratives. When I see number, I am excited. In secondary school, I was the quiet type. So, when people were  running around, making noise, I would be  doing Mathematics. So, I love maths. When I entered the university in my first semester, I saw myself as the best in Mathematics. So, from the first year till last, I was the best in the class. I was top of the class right from the first year and this got me motivated by the popular saying that the effort you need to get to the top is not enough to retain it. So, I had to double the effort. It was tough because of the thinking that the second best would challenge me.

Why did you go to UK?

After my first degree, I went for Youth Service. Later, all the best students from various departments were invited to come and lecture. So, I came back to Ondo State University as a Graduate Assistant. If you are in academics, you must do second degree and third. So, when I joined, I had to enrol for Master’s degree, and was torn between doing Maths or Computer Science? I was in 200 level in Ondo State University when they started Computer Science, and I love computer because I could see practical things it would do. I finally opted for Computer Science at Master’s level. While doing my M.Sc at FUTA, I had to do an independent project. At this time, my interest in biology was already high and I was thinking of how to apply mathematics to biology. So, while I was doing computer in my project, I focused on application of biology (diabetes mellitus), and that was how I moved to Medicine in 1997. So, from that time, I got hooked to Medical Sciences. So, when I finished my M.Sc, I wanted to go out of Nigeria for Ph.D. So, I was looking for any research that would help me to get more knowledge of medical sciences. I resolved to do diabetes in the lower part of the eyes, and that was my Ph.D proposal. But, on getting to the UK, that topic had already been given to a Philippino friend to do. So, when I got there, I had no topic but my supervisor then, had to put me in skin centre. I became a professor before 40 years of age.

Was your social life affected?

My social life is not excellent. That is the truth. I am an hardworker. I socialised in the United Kingdom but I don’t in Nigeria, because there are so many things to do. Okay. I came back to Nigeria in 2013. And coming here, I came as a professor and I have been very busy with responsibility. Though you can still find time to socialise I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t womanise. Except occasionally when I go to parties with the Chancellor, Dr. Ramon Adedoyin, my social life is below average.

How do you unwind?

My family is in the United Kingdom. So, my best of moment is when I am talking to my children. In the UK, I love going to the beach. But, I just eat out in Nigeria. Apart from that, I watch movie everyday. I know that is surprising. I watch Africa Magic everyday because I don’t need my full mental ability to think while watching Africa Magic Yoruba. As they are saying it, it is just like someone is gisting beside me and I can be doing my work. I love the Animal Channel. If I watch that, it would mean that I have to pay attention to it to understand what is happening and that would get me distracted because my laptop is my best friend. So, every time my laptop is with me and I am watching movies, it is just like you are chatting beside me. So, I don’t get distracted and I don’t feel that it is too quiet around me.

How did you meet your wife?

(Laughs). Okay, my wife and I are from the same town. And her dad and mine were best of friends. So, she would come to our house and I would go to theirs. Apart from the fact that we were family friends, the two fathers were business partners.

I imagine how you wooed her since you were not social.

(Laughs). I asked her ‘can we be friends’ and she said ‘oh you are quiet, brilliant, so, why shouldn’t we’? And so we started. We had nine years of courtship before we got married. The first time I spoke to her about it, she said she would think about it. And that was the generation of letter writing. I think she was shy and so she had to write what she wanted to say.

What did she write in the letter?

(Laughs). I think she said she was happy to be my girlfriend. She said I was brilliant and nobody identified me with trouble. I think she liked the fact that I was very good in mathematics. Immediately she agreed to dating me, I started teaching her mathematics. I don’t know maybe mathematics was the saving grace (laughs). Because of my smartness and being academically high up by the grace of God, many ladies wanted me because I was quiet and brilliant.

But I am not easily distracted. Many of them would come for me to teach them mathematics. So, in the university, it was quite challenging. Even while I was teaching, it was very challenging because I was teaching almost half of the population of the school calculus to start with.  So, girls would come to meet you. They would say all kinds of things that would interest a man. But, I was able to resist them, by staying focused.

What is your life philosophy?

Put God first. I believe strongly that if you put God first, there is nothing you cannot achieve. Set your goals and He will help you get there. The Bible says the race is not for the swift neither battle for the strong. But, time and chance happen to them all. So, I believe that when man can trust God and work really hard, man can achieve anything.

Is there anything people don’t really know about you?

People don’t know that I am British. You know I am on the quiet side. So, most people don’t know me in Nigeria. I don’t have anything secret that is known to the people who know me.

I also hate any form of sin. The Bible says righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach. I hate lies. Any form of sin in whatever nomenclature, I don’t like it. What I like is people of integrity. Nobody is perfect but I try my best to do things well at all times.

When is your University going to be ranked number one?

We will get there soon. We have started Computer Based Test (CBT) examinations since I joined. They do virtual lectures since I joined. We have collaborations with some universities outside Nigeria, precisely Georgia State University and they are training our students through the virtual programme. And I have started to train academic staff to let them realize the importance of research. For a university to go higher in ranking, research is number one. And because I am a scholar, all glory to God, I have what it takes to train people. So, we meet every two weeks at what we called academic meeting. I have been training them and motivating them, to be able to publish more. So, by the time we increase our publication and ICT adoption, we are going higher then. And the Chancellor is giving us all the support to make sure we have the resources. So, when are we going to be number one? We will get there. Things are getting better. As I have said, Rome was not built in a day. One thing is to make the university visible because the ranking would require web presence. So, what we have done now is to make sure that all staff of this university open an account on Google Scholar, which is a platform to know any researcher in the world and how he is compared with others. This was instructed so that their publications can be visible to the outside world. We have improved on our website. The third one is to motivate people to do research. In Nigeria, people see a university as a teaching environment and I say this is extremely wrong. In the United Kingdom, a university is a research facility that you can teach. Number one is research while number two is, you can teach. In Nigeria, it is more of teaching than research. The difference between a university and a primary and secondary school is research and community service. Do you know, I teach students as a vice-chancellor? You may now say where do I have the time? It is because I do a lot of research work and so I want students to benefit from my wealth of experience. I have spent 26 years in academics. So, with all these, I believe our ranking would get better.

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