*Wins eight awards as best graduating student in Sociology
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
A retired banker, Farouk Sanni yesterday, emerged the best graduating student in the Department of Sociology, University of Ibadan.
The 60-year old retired banker, while speaking on his experience at the 75th convocation ceremony at the University of Ibadan, disclosed that he took up the challenge to stay healthy and pursue his quest to understand human behaviour after retiring at UBA and had to write JAMB to be admitted to study sociology.
Sanni, who bagged eight awards as a result of the feat, stressed that he wrote JAMB with his child, who is now studying law at the University of Ibadan.
According to him, “Studying in a class where you have those who of the same age with your children can be very challenging, but I was magnanimous to accommodate what happened.
” Some called me daddy, some called me Mr Sanni while some will even say “he may be a daddy but he is not my father”. I experienced a lot of things, but as an old person, I was able to remain focussed. “
The retired banker who said he felt accomplished with studying sociology in his quest to understand why people behave the way they do, said he had read accounting at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife as an imposed course by an uncle.
A lecturer in the department, Dr Oludayo Tade while speaking on the feat of Mr Sanni, said the best graduating student had a chair which he tied to a tree where he read under a tree in the faculty of the social sciences.
Dr Tade stressed, “This 60-year-old man, Mallam F. K. Sanni graduated with FIRST CLASS in Sociology, University of Ibadan as the best student in his set, and with that won 8 awards. He has two undergraduate children in UI at the moment”.
” Until he graduated, he picked and dropped his two children at lecture halls, and most of the time, I met him reading under the tree on Saturday and Sunday”, he said
Dr Tade added, ” On Ileya day, I saw him at usual reading space under a faculty tree, where he had brought a chair tied to the tree to use whenever he came around to read. I asked him jokingly: Alhaji ni Ojo Ileya, he said Oga, I have bought everything they needed for them oooo. Staying with them will distract me, Sir.”
