Olanike Adeyemo Quotes

It is in every profession. If you do something grudgingly, you are not likely to put in your best. So, I will advise people not to do any job grudgingly. The Managing Director of First Bank, Sola Adeduntan, is my friend. He was a year ahead of me at vet school. He is a veterinarian and there is another one at Stanbic IBTC, who graduated from Agronomy Department here at UI. It is better for you to find your way to your place of passion than to stay grudgingly in a profession.

Women are also confronted with challenges common to all researchers. These include poor infrastructure, access to cutting-edge research tools and funding to carry out research. Additionally, early career female researchers don’t have many female role models for motivation and mentorship.

There is the need to explore the field more and sponsor research on epidemiological study. We need to know why more people are dying of renal failure, liver cancer and kidney problems when they do not indulge in attitude or have conditions that expose them to the diseases.

Veterinary medicine has an increasingly important role to play in addressing the global challenges of the 21st century based on our societal contributions to Animal Welfare, Biomedical Research, Animal Health, Production, and Conservation of Species, as well as Safeguarding the Health of Humans. Worldwide the profession is facing challenges in maintaining the economic sustainability of veterinary education and practice, evolving veterinary service to meet changing societal needs; in addition, the populace, policymakers, and even medical professionals are frequently unaware of how veterinary medicine fundamentally supports both animal and human health.

Women in science do seem to find it difficult to be recognised and achieve academic excellence. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa, due to cultural limitations and bias. Within the Nigerian environment marriage, parenthood and other gender-assigned roles – such as primary caregivers for the elderly – take precedence over career and education.

I tell the younger ones now that they can be whatever they want to be and it is easier now to navigate.

COVID-19 has brought that to us that we all live in the same state. You can not separate human health from animal health and environmental health and that is what we veterinarians call “one health”. That is the domain of my research.

No country will help you to develop your own country. If you are getting a research grant, it must be one that favours the country funding it. For us to solve our environmental and health issues, research must be funded by Nigeria. Most of the funds we get are from outside the country but they determine what they want you to research on. They are tied to conditions. Most of them will not solve the basic needs of Nigeria. Only Nigerians can help Nigeria achieve greater development.

Nobody can excel in any profession they don’t have passion for.

It is better for you to find your way to your place of passion than to stay grudgingly in a profession.

I looked at the impact of lead in fuel and at that time, other countries had banned lead in petrol but we were still using it and I wanted to look at the impact of that on the environment. When you emit all these into the atmosphere and it rains, it runs into rivers and most of our pollutants go into rivers. I looked at the lead level in rivers in Ibadan. I looked at the impact on fish and I was able to see that what goes round comes round.

Of course, there are a lot. Lead causes cancer and other things we saw when I did my research. The impact is not only on animals. We eat fish and we accumulate this in our bodies. When you take a fish that has been exposed to lead, some of those things will be in its flesh and liver and when you eat it, you are also being exposed to lead. So, whatever we push into the environment eventually comes back to us because we are higher animals but it takes longer for those effects to manifest in us because of our body mass and all that.

In the order of importance, I am a mother, I’m a wife and I take anything that has to do with my family seriously. I have siblings and I have a mum but my dad is late. Those are some of the things that define me. Also, I am a researcher and a lecturer as well as an administrator. Those are the three things we do in academia. Some think because there is a strike, lecturers are not working but I am actively researching now. Even when I don’t teach, I do some other things.

In some developed countries, some people keep exotic pets and among several ways is bestiality which can bring sexual transmission of diseases. For instance, many people don’t know that a pregnant woman should not be in contact with cats because cats transmit a disease that causes abortion.

What you do may be different from your calling and you can only excel in the area where your passion is.