One
of my favourite teachers at the Kano State College of Arts and Sciences, popularly
called CAS was Malam Ahmad Gambo. Those days were beautiful because the Kano
State government at the time had succeeded in bringing the best of the best to
teach at the College. In the Arts and Social Sciences you had such brilliant
minds like Dr Said Dukawa, Malam Zakariya M Zakari, Dr Ado Mukhtar Bichi etc.
Despite
the hectic nature of the IJMB programme, you never want to miss your lectures. For
certainly apart from the lesson you take from these lecturers, you also learn
one or two things about life.
Towards
the end of the IJMB programme, many of the students were worried about getting
admission into university, not because they will fail in the exam, but simply
for the fear of what in Nigeria is called ‘long leg’. As students expressed
those fears, Malam Ahmad, in his philosophical way said something that has
remained with me till this day. All you need to do is to make sure you get the
best result in the final exam, he told us. Should your application be thrown
into the dustbin, if the result is good enough, the paper will shout from the
dustbin to remind the admission officer that you have forgotten a qualified
candidate, and so he must find a place for you. He added.
In essence
what Malam Ahmad was teaching us was that we should remain confident and
understand that favouritism has a limit. Many of the students listened. To date
I couldn’t remember one student who had 10 points and above in the final IJMB
who couldn’t secure admission into the university, of course some got it much
harder than others, but at the end, those who passed the exam well proved that
their results cannot be dumped in the dustbin.
For those
who may not be aware, the IJMB is a post-secondary school programme conducted
by the Institute of Education at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Students normally
take a combination of courses that will lead them into a degree programme. For instance
if you want to study medicine, your combination will be chemistry, physics and
biology. If you get good result you can be admitted into the second year in the
university. It is equivalent to what is called high school or college depending
on the system.
About
three years ago, I attended a rigorous job interview. Instead of the
traditional single interview panel that you find in many organisations, in this
occasion you attend four different panels. In the first panel, you develop a module,
from teaching to assessment and present it to the entire staff of the
department. You then move to another panel to discuss your research. In fact
even students have to evaluate your ability, so you attend a student panel and
teach them for half an hour, and then finally, you attend the main interview. Each
member of these panels will give you a score and the total result as well as
your performance in the final interview decides whether you get the job or not.
The
professor chairing the interview sessions, a brilliant and jovial person noticed
that many of the candidates were worried, and he said something interesting
which has remained with me to date, “each and every one of you is qualified to
get this job, that is why you have been shortlisted”, and suddenly all the
faces started smiling. He then continued, “So you are not competing with the
person next to you” he added, “you are simply competing against yourself, all
you need is to prove that you are the best candidate for the job.”
Why am
I narrating these boring stories to you? The answer is simple, I am worried
about the self-defeatist attitude which I noticed in some of our youth. They believe
‘long leg’ is everything? I disagree. Yes ‘long leg’ is a reality, perhaps
those unlucky youths who lost their lives or got injured in the Nigerian
immigration interview were there because they don’t have a ‘long leg’. But understand
that favourtisim has a limit, if you do your homework, one day your chance will
come. I conclude with one of my favourite quotes attributed to Dale Carnegie, “Inaction breeds doubt
and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do
not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy”.
4:56
30.05.1435
31.03.2014
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