ON Friday last week, all roads led to Osun State University Osogbo, Osun State where dignitaries from government, business and education circles came to mark the second edition of the university’s convocation.

The university presented no fewer than 657 students drawn from five of the institution’s seven colleges, for its various first degree awards in which 19 of the students had first class honours.

Rising stars had a chat with Oladipo Anthony Dotun, the most outstanding student of the year 2012 in the institution. Dotun completed his first degree in the Department of Economics with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.90. His extra-ordinary academic performance had earned him many awards from his  department, faculty, vice chancellor and chancellor of the university.

Dotun, unlike any other graduating student in the university, had spent five years in the seminary where it only remained a few years to complete the course  which will eventually qualify him to become a Reverend Father, when he suddenly rescinded his initial passion for priesthood for a career in secular education where he obtained his first degree in Economics with distinctions.

One would have considered Dotun’s decision as a big loss to the Catholic Church where he would have become another potential outstanding priest for the church. However, what seems to be a loss to priesthood, has become a blessing to the academic world.

Dotun shared his experience with Rising Stars.  “I finished secondary school in 2003, with seven distinctions including Mathematics and English. Because of my passion for religious activities and the love to serve humanity as a priest, I joined All Saints Major Seminary, Ekpoma, Edo State. But, Along the line, I began to have a second thought over my ambition of becoming a priest.

“At the end of my fifth year as a  seminarian, I decided to withdraw from the system, not because I could no longer cope academically, or spiritually, neither were pressures from family and friends a factor enough to frustrate me out of the  system. I just felt that I might not be able to cope with the system after a while. One other factor that influenced my decision was that I was the only son of my mother and my father is dead. One day, I looked at my life and all the circumstances that surrounded me, so I decided to pull out of the system.

As a matter of fact, not many people liked my decision then, but there was nothing they could do about it. However, my mother and my other sisters really encouraged me in my academic programme.

“In 2008, I enrolled for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), and at the end of the exercise, Osun State University gave me an admission to study Economics. That was how I found myself back in academic life at Osun State University and today, I can say that I am fulfilled as a graduate and  by the special grace of God, I will pursue my academic career to professorship level,” he said.

Though, many people might read different meanings to Dotun’s change of mind from priesthood to secular education, having spent five years in the seminary, Dotun did not consider his decision as a retrogressive one, but expressed fulfillment in his new career.

While advising  the in-coming students on academic excellence, he stated that a serious student would know what he or she  has come to do in the university, set a target to be among the best students and thus, pursue the vision.

“There is nothing one cannot achieve under the heaven with hard work and prayers, but the first task of a serious minded student is to strive not to deviate from the purpose for which he or she is in the university. It is therefore imperative for students to learn how to utilise their time judiciously so as to know the time for lectures, personal study or reading and recreation, he said while attributing his success to God and the discipline he had imbibed while he was a seminarian.

One of his memorable days in the university was when he had a C in one of his  100 level courses. According to him; “I wanted to fight the lecturer over it, but someone discouraged me, saying that students do not fight lecturers, no matter what the situation might be which i later yielded to and I kept my cool but today, all the lecturers are my friends; I love them all,” he said.

According to Dotun, he has determined to pursue his education to the highest level, thereby, setting his mind on being a lecturer. Rising Stars gathered that Dotun is the only  son of  the family and that all his sisters also graduated with second class upper.