I Drew Significant Inspiration From Those Who Taught Me From Elementary Classes & Up To University
Channel: Prof. Yemi Osinbajo
Date: 2022-10-22

2022 Maltina Teacher Of The Year Award

My class teacher in primary school, a lady called Mrs. Oyegun, would on rainy days and when we couldn’t go out for break, organise debates. She would give us a topic and divide the class into two: for and against the topic. One day after one of the debates, she said to the class “I think Oluyemi  (my full name Oluyemi is what I was called then) is a very good debater.

From then on I took an interest in debating. I went on to represent my secondary school for years in debates. And it certainly influenced my choice of the legal profession.

When I got into secondary school, I wasn’t particularly academically confident, there were high performers from primary schools everywhere.  But two weeks after we got into Form 1(JSS1 now) our English class teacher, Mrs Bola Elushade, of blessed memory, had in our English class asked us to write an essay about our first day in school. Days later, she announced the name of Dapo Alli as having written the best and the neatest essay and she said his essay would be posted up on the class notice board.

I wasn’t really paying attention as she spoke, and then she said but there was one other essay, the handwriting wasn’t good, but it was very imaginative. When she read it out, my classmates clapped and it turned out that it was my essay.

Mrs Elushade decided that my essay would also be put on the notice board alongside the best essay. Since then, overnight, I became much more confident of my academic skills.  From then on I knew I had to impress not just my teacher, but I also could not let myself down.

Fast forward to University, I was in my final year at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos in 1978,  when a certain lecturer walked into our classroom, to take a class in jurisprudence. It was Dr. Akin Oyebode, who had studied both at Harvard in the US and Kiev in Russia.
 
He had only a bunch of keys in his hands, no notes, and he spoke with such eloquence and authority for one hour on the Sociological School of Jurisprudence without notes. It was that evening that I decided that whatever else I would do as a lawyer, I would certainly teach law and that I also would master my material so well that I would teach so well as not to need notes to teach.

I went on to join the Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos in 1981 and I did exactly that. A word from a teacher to a student can make such a difference in the life of a student. That is the nature and power that teachers have.
 
People often say with a great deal of sarcasm that a teacher’s reward is in heaven. The saying is meant to suggest that teaching is neither financially nor materially lucrative. That’s true, but the saying misses an important point about most committed teachers. For such teachers, their greatest joy and satisfaction come from seeing their pupils and students do well and become successes in life. For most successful teachers, teaching is a vocation, it is just something they are called to do.

I was pleasantly surprised last year when my former students did a video celebration of my 40th year anniversary as a university teacher. My students include Judges and Justices, including a Justice of the Supreme Court, Hon. Justice John Inyang Okoro, and many Judges including former Chief Judge of Sokoto State, Aisha Sanni Dahiru."

************************


The official YouTube channel for Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON.

Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo is a Nigerian Lawyer and Politician who is the current Vice President of Nigeria, in office since 29 May 2015.

Follow Prof. Osinbajo online:
Website: www.yemiosinbajo.ng
Facebook: Professor Yemi Osinbajo
Twitter: @ProfOsinbajo
Instagram: @ProfOsinbajo
TikTok: @ProfOsinbajo