In 2017, Bankole Ridwanullahi Ameenullahi wrote Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) — an entry examination conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) — to secure admission into his preferred higher institution. He scored 225 out of 400 total marks, so the UTME result prompted him to apply for Civil Engineering in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS). However, he couldn’t make it to Engineering class. Instead, he was offered Statistics.
The 25-year-old admission seeker was surprised he would rather settle for a course away from Engineering faculty or none. He never heard of a course called Statistics.
Nevertheless, Bankole exchanged a warm handshake with fate. He journeyed to Sokoto State in Nigeria’s northwest for the first time to pursue a degree.
“I arrived late to UDUS that year, even though the C.A test was about to begin because I got third batch admission. I tried to fall in love with my course and Alhamdulillahi at last, I am now a Statistician,” he said..
Though Bankole had it in mind to graduate in flying colors, he was scared by what someone somewhere had told his colleagues that no one could graduate with first-class. “Many students used to tell me that Statistics is hard. They also told me the history of a Statistics student that dropped out from school because of CGPA. This made me think I couldn’t achieve it but with Allah help l achieved it,” he narrated.
However, his first-class journey started with 4.26 CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) of 5.0 grading system in 100 level. His CGPA increased to 4.44 in 200 level, 4.51 in 300 level and finally graduated with 4.55 CGPA.
Bankole felt fulfilled for being a first-class graduate. To him, “It is a dream come true, we used to sing a song in secondary school that ‘when the scholars are matching on, I want to be among the scholars, when the scholars are matching on’. I am happy that I am now among the scholars of my faculty and the university as a whole,” he said happily.
Checks by this reporter reveal that Bankole is the only first-class graduate of Statistics in the 2020/2021 academic session, becoming the first to attain the feat in five years. Not only that, he emerged as the best-graduating student in the whole Faculty of Physical and Computing Sciences.
No one encourage me with any prize — Bankole
Speaking with this reporter, Bankole bemoaned encouragement culture at his university. According to him, graduating with the apex of class degree in a difficult course like Statistics was never easy, much less from a school he described as one of the hardest universities in Africa.
“No one encourages me with any prize. Seriously, there is no encouragement for the best students in UDUS which is totally bad. The management needs to do something about it because it is not easy to attain third-class not to talk of first-class,” he said.
Continuing, Bankole noted that schools like “University of Ilorin always treats their scholars well which gives a good name and pride to the institution for encouraging their students. They don’t mind the expenses because they value the developmental outcome of it.”
Recounting his undergraduate days, Bankole explained how he created a platform named Baba Sta Data Analysis Platform (BASDAP) where he taught students how to analyze data by using statistical tools like SPSS, Minitab and R-code.
According to him, his desire to help students overcome challenges of calculation courses pushed him to collaborate with other like-minds to create Standard Deviation Tutorial (SDT), a class where they teach mathematics, physics, chemistry and other calculation courses.
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