Bankole Ridwanullahi Ameenullahi has achieved an impressive milestone by breaking a five-year record and obtaining a first-class degree in Statistics from Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS).
In 2017, Bankole wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and scored 225 out of 400 marks. Although he initially applied for Civil Engineering, he was offered a place in the Statistics department instead.
Despite his surprise at being allocated a different course, Bankole embraced the opportunity and traveled to Sokoto State in Nigeria’s northwest to pursue his degree.
Although he joined UDUS late due to being admitted in the third batch, he quickly developed a passion for his course and successfully graduated as a Statistician.
Bankole faced doubts and discouragement from fellow students who believed that Statistics was a difficult course and that achieving a first-class degree was impossible.
However, Bankole remained determined and with the help of Allah, he achieved outstanding academic success. His Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) increased each year, starting at 4.26 in the 100 level and reaching an impressive 4.55 at graduation.
Bankole expressed his joy and fulfillment at becoming a first-class graduate, fulfilling his long-held dream of being among the top scholars in his faculty and university. He is proud to be the only first-class graduate in Statistics for the 2020/2021 academic session and the best graduating student in the Faculty of Physical and Computing Sciences.
Bankole also shared that he did not receive any external motivation or rewards for his accomplishments.
Speaking with this reporter, Bankole bemoaned the encouragement culture at his university. According to him, graduating with the apex of a class degree in a difficult course like Statistics was never easy, much less from a school he described as one of the hardest universities in Africa.
“No one encourages me with any prize. Seriously, there is no encouragement for the best students at UDUS which is bad. The management needs to do something about it because it is not easy to attain third-class not to talk of first-class,” he said.
Continuing, Bankole noted that schools like “The University of Ilorin always treat their scholars well which gives a good name and pride to the institution for encouraging their students. They don’t mind the expenses because they value the developmental outcome of it.”
Recounting his undergraduate days, Bankole explained how he created a platform named Baba Sta Data Analysis Platform (BASDAP) where he taught students how to analyze data by using statistical tools like SPSS, Minitab, and R-code.
According to him, his desire to help students overcome the challenges of calculation courses pushed him to collaborate with other like-minds to create Standard Deviation Tutorial (SDT), a class where they teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other calculation courses