LIB Exclusive: What you don’t know & need to know about 5.0 CGPA Scholar – Ayodele Daniel Dada

Questions were asked – How did he do it? Has he always been a genius? Because it takes a dedicated  person to excel in such a way. Linda Ikeji Blog decided to Interview him, not only to celebrate his outstanding academic excellence but to also shed light on his journey and hopefully inspire others. From how Jamb cancelled his result because they felt he cheated and more, Ayodele gives an exclusive insight into his life. Read after the cut…

I am Ayodele Daniel Dada. As you know, I convocated from the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos. I am the first child of my Parents. We are just two. I just have one other sibling – A Brother. We hail from Ekiti State. My Dad is an Accountant (retired now) and my mum is a teacher. She has been a teacher for a while now, over 20 years. I’m someone who has a passion for understanding people. I think that was why I was drawn to Psychology. I don’t just want to understand people but I also want to help them and add value to their lives in which ever way I can. For me, it’s all about people, I care a lot about people. Generally as a person, my personality is not the highly outgoing type. I’m more reserved. Religiously, I’m a Christian. I have a Strong Belief in God and He’s a big part of my Affairs. I take God seriously and He figures in all my plans.

As I have said publicly, I do not believe I am a Genius. I have never really considered myself a Genius and there are several reasons for that. Yes from primary school I had always been intelligent. Primary school was a period where I tried to enhance my knowledge of the world. My Dad used to encourage us to learn more about politics, geography, civic knowledge and all the things that make you distinguished amongst others and more enlightened people. During my primary school education, I was sometimes on top of my class, other times, not so much. I wasn’t always the top student in Primary School but i was always known to be at least in the Top five percent. Secondary school – The same transpired. I was Sometimes at the top – maybe for a year or two, other times I would be 2nd or 3rd, then I’ll go back again to the Top. The thing was Generally, there were areas that I always had interest in and I would always give my best. And when I really cared about something, I remember clearly that I was totally unbeatable at it. If I really wanted to do something, It may have just been a subject I really liked, I just have to focus a while lot on it. If I like it and I can do it well, I would do something really remarkable at it. That’s how my early schooling and academic life was until University Level.

Okay. Now this Degree I just got began in an interesting way. When I did the UTME Exam, I believed that I had done well. There are exams you write and you are certain of your performance. I went as far as taking my scripts home and cross checking with textbooks and other sources (also online). I knew for a fact that there was no way I could score below 300/400. But then Low and behold, I got a message when I was trying to check the result, that my result was cancelled because I must have cheated in the exam. I was Devastated and I felt so sad and I just thought – Okay, What do I do? I had to complain. I had to get people to just plead my case, visit the office and get feed back on what was the next step to take to rectify the situation. It was stretching on and on & I didn’t really fancy that long winding process. So I tried to figure out what the next option was. Some people just felt I should do ahead and take the diploma/foundation programme and I did that.