June 29, (THEWILL) – The most celebrated lawyer in Nigeria today is not even a lawyer because she’s yet to be called to the bar. Nor has she won a celebrated case in any court of law to stand her among senior advocates. Instead, Aminat Imoitsemeh Yusuf has won the hearts of so many admirers across Nigeria and beyond – with at least two state governors among them.
The academia in Nigeria recorded a rare feat mid-June after she emerged the best graduating student in the Law Department of Lagos State University Ojo in Lagos state. The law graduate had a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 5.0 making her the very first student to achieve that feat in the institution’s 40-year history. Of the 55 federal, state and private universities offering law in the country, LASU comes ninth in the 2022 rating. Never before has any student in any of these schools aggregated a total of 5.0 as CGPA.
Ever since the news broke last week, Ms. Yusuf has been the subject of attention from the academia that produced her to state governments and social media. As a visitor to LASU during its graduation, Governor Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state stood proudly by her at the podium as the school’s valedictorian. He went on to reward her with a N10m cash prize in appreciation for her “achievements and a celebration of her hard work and dedication.”
Not to be outdone, his counterpart in Edo state, Godwin Obaseki promised automatic employment to the wunderkind grad, assuring her of a readymade place in the Edo State Civil Service to “avoid losing her,” according to a statement from Edo State Head of Service Mr. Anthony Okungbowa.
Aminat’s father, an award-winning journalist with The Nation, Mr. Ibraheem Yusuf from Edo state, has already accepted Obaseki’s offer. “They have accepted our offer of employment,” Okungbowa said of the state’s proposal to the Yusufs, insisting that the state is “committed to improving the quality of human resources in the public service. We have prioritised this and will get the best to work in the state. We have done everything within our power as a government to ensure that we create an enabling environment for work and as a result, we also want the best hands. We thank our dear young men and women who have excelled in their studies and we expect that more of them will achieve this feat.”
Already, Edo state is angling to have Aminat do her mandatory one year youth service in the state. “She has not done her law school programme and her youth service,” Okungbowa admitted. “We are proposing to write to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) so that she will serve with us here in Edo state after her law school programme so that we don’t risk losing her.”
Describing Aminat as a worthy ambassador of the state, Edo State Government has also promised monetary reward for her “sterling feat.”
As for the young grad whose visage reminds you of one with a wide-awake intelligence, she was not entirely surprised she made such a great score in her final exams. She’d been consistent even from her days as a Diploma student averaging 4.98 CGPA then for two years. Her 5.0 as a graduate student was a great improvement on the pace she’d set for herself.
Speaking of her record-setting grade, Aminat reminisced thusly: “The events of the past few days have motivated me to briefly share in brief my story, in a bid to inspire many others who are in similar situations as I was and are striving towards excellence.”
Striving towards excellence for her had many obstacles, some of which was finance. Her journalist father and trader mother aren’t as rich as Croesus “I experienced some serious financial constraints during my two plus four years stay at LASU,” she said. For most of the time in her 200 Level, she recalled snacking on groundnuts and garri “just because I needed to get a browsing phone and get trained in computer skills, I saved up about 90 per cent of my feeding allowance.”
A close friend of hers made sure everyone got to know of Aminat’s sudden bias for the cassava flakes and roasted peanuts. The law student got her phone anyway which aided her work tremendously. What also helped was that, unlike students in Akoka campus of University of Lagos with hostel accommodation, LASU had nothing of such. So, Aminat “lived in the university premises, because I had no hostel, and going home every day would have been absolutely inconvenient. The school had a stand-by security and standard lighting system, so it was safe for me; my major challenge was having to attend lectures every day in a neatly ironed white and black dress, acting like everything was perfect.”
For now however, everything seems to be going swimmingly for Nigeria’s most talked about graduate. She herself has shown appreciation to LASU authorities for “sustaining the congenial and conducive environment that contributed to her excellent performance” and her faculty lecturers “for their reflex of excellence, commitment and dedication teaching us to be the best.”
Of course all of that wouldn’t have been without her parent’s effort and Aminat is grateful for their “unwavering support toward my education…My parents really motivated me from their different careers; my father is a journalist while my mother is a business woman.”
Apart from the smitten state chief executives with Aminat’s more than average performance, one can imagine dozens of SANS waiting in the wings to snatch her up once she’s done with NYSC and Law school in two years – notwithstanding the advance offer from Edo State Government.
Until then, Aminat remains daddy’s girl, a daughter in whom her father is very well pleased. In a thank you message on his Facebook page, Ibraheem said of Aminat’s feat that “it was a red letter day for us yesterday as our phone lines buzzed with calls, text messages, prayers, well-wishes, you name it! Tell you what, as a family, never before have we experienced such outpouring of love and well-wishes in a lifetime, especially flowing from almost every corner of the earth like an embarrassment of riches of sorts, all in honour of our dear daughter, Aminat Imoitsemeh Yusuf, a graduate of the Faculty of Law, who achieved the first of its kind feat in the history of the Lagos State University, after coming top of the entire 2021/2022 class with a 5.00 CGPA. We thank you most heartily for celebrating this feat with us and sharing in the joy of this monumental success. We really don’t take this affection and show of love for granted at all. Our wings are indeed lowered!”
About the Author
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
