Adenike Osofisan Quotes

Our guardian and counsellor in Aiyetoro, Mr Olumide Kuti, encouraged me to read computer science. He asked me to go to the library to read about it because I had no idea what the discipline was about then. Aiyetoro, being an American school then, had a very good library. So I read a book on computer science and fell in love with it instantly.

Doing what I enjoy doing.

It was very difficult but not impossible. I learnt time management and multitasking from home and from my secondary school. These came in handy.

Give and take! Forgive each other because nobody is perfect.

Of course yes. It was not an easy thing in the past for men to accept women in authority. Even women at the time were to not as supportive as they are today. I learnt to separate motherhood from ‘workhood’, if you know what I mean. I was a completely different person in the office from who I was at home.

I am grateful to God for all. Each has had its own impact in different ways, so it is difficult to identify one as being the most memorable.

As for Kudirat too, the heroine of democracy, I felt so highly elated that I am being honoured along with those two heroines. I feel proud about it.

We should go back to Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s plan. With respect to Chief Awolowo, his definition of education was that ‘it is the right of every child to be educated’ and he gave children quality and free education. The education they gave me at Ife was solid, so I was able to fit into Geogia Tech. Awolowo gave scholarships across the board to students who did very well. Some scholarships for science students included book allowance. Awolowo had a blueprint for free education before it was introduced. He was well prepared for free education compared with nowadays that people (politicians) promise free education without being fully prepared for it.

I went to Georgia Tech because it was listed among the 10 best colleges for computer science education. Yes, computing education was relatively new but I studied computer science/economics at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and was among the first set of students that graduated in 1976. One of our lecturers then, Dr Odeyemi, already had a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Manchester as the first PhD holder in computer science in Nigeria.

A lot of people get it wrong. The facilities available today are more than what was available in our days. During our time, General Science was only introduced in our final year. However, today, even from primary school, children are exposed to computing, science and the like.

In fairness, I didn’t come across anything like sex- for-marks but I did come across discrimination that was gender and racial-biased. Some people believe that if you are a woman or black, you cannot be really good (intelligent).

I was called Iron Lady for being a successful woman.

Our stories are very interesting. He was a science pupil who became an arts pupil because of Principal D. J. Bullock. I was an arts pupil and I became a science pupil by providence. We are both familiar with the two terrains.

We met in my hometown – Akure – when he was commissioned by the Akure Students’ Union to stage a play. The play was about politicians and my father, Chief J. O. Adedipe, was a politician. He was a lawmaker between 1954 and 1959 and I was curious and wanted to see how the likes of my father behaved. The play was a masterpiece. So I congratulated him at the end of the play. I was not aware that we had met earlier at the park when he arrived in Akure. He later told me that I did not answer him when he greeted me earlier.

I would have loved to do certain things differently but no regrets. At the beginning I fought all battles that came my way, but with hindsight, I’ve realised that not all battles are worth fighting because you will just dissipate energy on needless battles. Don’t ask me for an example of such battles; they are personal and may cause embarrassment to some people.