𝑴𝒚 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒍 𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒓𝒔:

Someone said that it’s in Nigeria that vice-chancellors and professors get young people expelled for exam malpractice while they are guilty of electoral malpractice themselves.

Well, this piece isn’t entirely political.

Earlier this year, one of my plans was to switch to Medical school from the Biological Sciences department within a specific timeframe. However, this didn’t turn out to be so because I was wrongly advised by my academic “mentor” after receiving a ‘token’ from me in school. I had wasted time. It was tagged ‘A mistake’ Anyways, we move.

So is this piece to address the decay in the morals of academics at tertiary institutions? Probably, not entirely.

Aside from the return of their investment in my education, which obviously I paid for, I have experienced good in the hands of some of these academics.

My first experience of kindness from a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka was when she ordered bags of sachet water for thirsty student one hot Saturday afternoon during her lecture. Now, it is important to note that Nsukka’s heat isn’t your regular kind. You can literally wash clothes now and get to pick them up dry within an hour.

This was honestly surprising because no one had really murmured about the hot environment or how hot the lecture theatre was and she just offered to ease us up. I too was in attendance here so you can imagine the height of my gratitude.

Next would be with a lecturer who found my missing calculator and kept it for me. I was in a Biochemistry practical in the lab carrying out a few exercises. At the end of the class, I left in a hurry to attend my department class meeting; leaving the calculator behind. An hour into the meeting, I realised it was not in my bag, excused myself and zoomed back to lab to try and recover it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it.

Ordinarily, there was little hope to have because students aren’t trained to report lost-and-found items to an office even though the school has these protocols in place. It is not as if everyone had listened to the message “Creating an Environment That Works” by Pastor Chris, so I couldn’t blame them anyway. That’s if you leave conscience and intelligence out of play.

Anyways, a week later, in the same lab; for the same practicals, the gentleman asked for the owner of a missing calculator. I identified myself and I was asked to defend my claim to get it back. Questions were asked and I answered and gave my claims. He took me to his office and gave me back the calculator.

There, in his office, I saw a pulpit. He was a Pastor, I guess. He then said with my answers, it was impossible to refute my claim as the owner and apologised for the ‘strict’ lost-and-found protocols. Man! Was I surprised! I had nearly given up on getting it back. I went online to check the price of the calculator. It costs about N6000, roughly $10. I honestly not have that money to spare for a missing item lost due to ‘my carelessness’.

Last week at the elections, I saw him at the polls serving as an INEC official. With the smile on everyone’s face, obviously, things went well. When it was time to count the result, he counted as it should be. Even though later on, we found out that the polling unit’s results had been tampered with, it definitely couldn’t have been influenced by him.

The third was an experience with a lecturer in my Microbiology class who prayed for us before and after the class. I was surprised. No, you don’t see that every day. Some of what you see are people arguing blindly that God is unjust and unreal. He also said something striking during class that I will not forget. He said, “Although the University’s motto is to restore the dignity of man, do you know Christ in you already does that for you?” You’re home and dignified in Christ, he explained.

When he said those words, I was excited in my spirit! I was hearing the language of the kingdom. This was our talk!

And finally, is an experience with a lecturer who shared a prophecy with us during her class. She is a lecturer in the School of General Studies, UNN, like the first lady I shared about above.

She told us how rough things went with her academics as a student at UNN; My plan-vs-how-things-ended-up kind of story. She recalled being marked down in an exam she had prepared well for, scoring a 6. Upon her investigation, it was revealed she had actually scored above 60 out of 70, but it hadn’t been properly recorded. This was supposed to be a wonderful A but it wasn’t. This dropped her off her ladder of dreams where she wanted to attain first class so that she could be a lecturer at the university. She fainted.

But the one thing that kept her going was a word of prophecy her Pastor shared with her. He used the example of a snail and a millipede to show her that though these two are slow animals, they know how to bend their way around situations. That’s why they can crawl on thorns to get to their destination no matter the delay. He told her that God was interested in her future and that He had opened doors for her. Within these light afflictions was the need to exercise patience.

She told us that she listened and heard him well and mentioned to us; “This year marks the fifth year since I completed my PhD studies and I know God did not make a mistake with my life”.

She commended us to the same message and then prayed briefly for us.

It was such a beautiful moment and I knew I needed to hear those words.

All in all, not all varsity lecturers are created to frustrate you. Perhaps, you just haven’t yet met the beautiful ones.

Shalom!