Stephanie Ugboaja and Favour Alozie with Gov. Emeka Ihedioha of Imo State.

Boluwatife Victory Odesanmi

How did it happen that three candidates from Imo State came top-three in the 2019 West African School Certificate (WASC) exam by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC)? And wait for this, Steve Osuji, Special Adviser on Media to the state Governor, said “the three alpha students are of Mbaise stock!”

They are: Stephanie Ugboaja and Favour Alozie in the picture above with Gov. Emeka Ihedioha of Imo State. The third champion is Godsfavor Amaechi who was, as Osuji revealed, also received in the Imo State Exco Chambers recently. “The trio were granted state scholarship up to first degree by the Imo State Government,” said he.The young lady Stephanie made nine straight ‘As’. What a record for Imo, what a record for Mbaise!

In Lagos, Odesanmi Boluwatife Victory, of Starfield Private College, Fagba Iju Lagos, also “cleared” his West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) 2019 May/June papers. These are:

Book Keeping: A1
Civic Education: A1
English Language:B2
Further Mathematics: A1
General Mathematics: A1
Biology: A1
Chemistry: A1
Physics: A1
Computer Studies: A1.

According to his parents, Pastor Kola Odesanmi and Mrs Atinuke Odesanmi, owner of Vaks Infertility Management Centre, Iju, peculiarity of the school attended had a lot to do with the result. In their words: “The name of the school speaks volume about it. The school environment is conducive for learning, well equipped and surrounded with seasoned, qualified and experienced teachers in their various field of specialty.
On coaching, they said: “We didn’t subject him to home coaching, the school did all coaching. The school during each session organized coaching during JAMB AND WASSCE .they also test their students with penultimate test before the examination with mock. The school has a big hall to accommodate the students during examination. Each student on a separate and equidistant furniture to seat .The population is not always explosive so as to have an individual interaction with students in class set up, and during examination, no cheating is allowed.”

What were their own roles as parents? They told TheNEWS: “Well, to the glory of God we his parents are pastors. What we know and do best are we have constant devotion,we have a family altar where our wards pray with us,fast also and wait on the Lord to answer our prayers.God grants knowledge, wisdom and understanding, so we train them in the way of the Lord,scold ,correct with love and give support when necessary. The rest is God that is doing His wonders . In addition to that, we encourage him to keep reading, even when at times he is so rest assured he knows it already, also we also have our everyday reading time so no matter what he’s doing, once its reading time he has to pick up his books and read.”
Did they notice any trait or peculiarity in the boy? Their answer: “To be precise his birthday is October, 18th 2003. His name BOLUWATIFE has a meaning. That is we never bargained to have any child after the other children we had, then the miracle baby came unexpectedly. We struggled in spirit,argued, but eventually thank God as pastors we knew better than taking the decision to abort, so we had the baby. This is to tell you about our God. BOLUWATIFE TESTIMONY VICTORY by the grace of God is the Headboy of his set. Despite being about the smallest and loaded as a precious student, he has little appetite for food,not extremely fashionable, not wayward, meticulous, focused,prayerful, respectful, a book worm, full of curiosity, intelligent, steadfast, tenacious, never tired of buying books to acquire knowledge and best be described as a prodigy. These are some of our observations and the rest is the work of God.”