In this interview with PHILIPS OLAWUNMI OJO, Prof Adewunmi reflected on his life and noted how he was yet to recover from the death of his daughter, which he said devastated him.
How was your beginning?
My childhood days were spent in the village. I lived in the village and went to farm with my late father, Chief Obanla Adewunmi. I enjoyed the life in the village in so many ways. What is a problem for the people in the city now was not a problem for us in the village. Security was not an issue. Even as a teen I would leave home even after school and went alone to meet my maternal grandfather in the farm and nothing would happen to me. My father was mainly a cocoa farmer. I became a Christian by virtue of living with my maternal grandfather. My father was a Muslim.
What were the challenges you had growing up?
The main challenge I had was finance. My father was paying my school fees for my secondary school education, which was 57 pounds. He was a peasant farmer.
When I was in form 2, the prices of cocoa went down and that affected my father’s economic fortune and so he was not able to pay my school fees on time.
What has been your source of inspiration?
My fervent belief in God is what keeps me going up till now. Also, my belief that if you are firm and loving; if you are humane you are likely to enjoy life more than if you were too harsh. I am not harsh on my children. I enjoy my family life. Even when all our children are out I enjoy living alone with my wife just two of us in the house.
What lessons have you learnt?
One of the lessons is that you have to take life as it comes. I have also learnt that one should be able to interact with human beings at the same level. Today, I interact with my students at the same level. I am the Dean of College of Information and Communication Technology in our university at Ota, Ogun State and quite a number of my colleagues also know that I interact with my students very well. Then with my colleagues too, there is great interaction. As the dean of the college, I see other people who work with me as colleagues. I don’t see them as subordinates. Though I am a professor and most of them still trying to get hold of their degrees, I don’t see them any less to me.
What is the best advice you have received?
The best advice I got was from my father. It was not in form of words but it in his actions. My father was very hardworking and he didn’t see any mountain insurmountable. I learnt hard work and perseverance from him.
When was your happiest day?
It was the day I had my first baby.
Your worst day?
When I lost my daughter has been my unhappiest day in life. I was devastated, and dejected. Till now I have not been able to lift it off my soul. It is my worst nightmare ever and I have not still woken up to even face the reality. It is a painful thing to lose a child at any point in ones life.
What are your programmes for the Nigeria Computer Society under your leadership?
One thing that can make the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) a Nigerian brand, global brand and an acceptable brand is the need to grow the NCS from the chapters. There would also be the need for capacity building, and to grow it, a lot of attention must be placed on youth development because today the youth development aspect is missing.
I will give you an example of myself: My achievements in life wouldn’t have been possible if things were as this harsh. I use to tell my children that if I were as young as you and been the son of a farmer at that time it would have been difficult for me to go to school because the amount of money paid as school fees these days is exorbitant. The NCS am looking at is that of the future, which rests on the youths.
Today, the elders are supposed to do enough work to be able to bring the youths and children up coupled with the fact that eight percent of allocation of our own national earning is being spent on education, which also is not a good thing. For me, there was a time I was spending over 70 to 80 percent of my earnings on my children’s education.
During my tenure, more emphasis would be placed on the development of youths and the NCS chapters.
You worked in public universities and now in private university, why are private universities taking over?
It won’t be easy for the private universities to take over from the public universities because quite a number of private universities are run as one man business whereby some of them don’t run the normal usual university system. They have all the facilities but the influence of the proprietors on some of them is enormous and it is causing problems but the university where I teach and some other private universities do not have this problem because our proprietor does not interfere in day to day running of the university. He wants it to run like a normal private university in the United State and has a target for us, which is producing the best. One thing why he gave us free hand to run the university is that he wanted us to show our expertise especially those of us involved in the management of the school. But quite a number of private universities do not have enough funds, and even enough students. When they don’t have enough students, the funds are limited. In a nutshell, the influence of some of the proprietors on some of our private universities is not going to allow them get into full maturity on time.
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DAVID O. ADEWUNMI: Daughter’s death my worst nightmare |
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