Extremely brilliant Rosemary Anuoluwapo Ajiboye of Sacred Heart College, Akinyemi Way, Ibadan, Oyo State, is Nigeria’s first female student to win the National Science Olympiad in Physics.
Her feat has also turned out to be a record for Oyo State. Miss Ajiboye, who turned 15 about a fortnight ago, emerged the winner after a competition that involved secondary schools that qualified for the second round of the examinations from 11 states of the federation. This earned her a place in the International Physics Olympiad in Switzerland. At the 2022 virtual competition, she represented Nigeria along with two others, and she came out with the best individual performance among the members of the Nigerian delegation. Her feat has earned her an automatic place in the 2023 edition of the competition, slated for Tokyo, Japan.
In an interview with the Saturday Tribune, Rosemary revealed that she didn’t begin her journey as a hands-on or competitive student. Before now, she was just a regular student at Sacred Heart College, Akinyemi. However, a policy by the school authorities led by the principal, Reverend Father (Dr) Michael Domingo, brought her into it and charged other students to aim higher in their academic pursuits. One of the ways to widen their academic scopes and explore new frontiers is through scholarly competitions. She initially saw the entire quest and the demands placed on her by the school authorities as a disruption of her routine school life. At first, she didn’t take the principal’s charge seriously, and she said so.
She was enrolled in the National Science Quiz competition by the school, and she just turned up. According to Miss Ajiboye, she initially believed the competition would be similar to her regular school work or a typical examination. But she was dazed by the scope of what she went into, and a few things changed her perception of the competition. “I never took it seriously, especially the first round, ”she admitted. “I had never been in a competition before. I felt it was going to be like schoolwork.”
She had thought that she would enter for the mathematics aspect of the contest, “but I could not answer the questions.” She said, “So I had to go for physics.”
Recalling how the journey began, she said: “We went for the first round of examinations in October 2021 at Wesley College, Elekuro, Ibadan. The results came out two months later, and I took the 6th position in the local government. We were given certificates of merit, but I said to myself, ‘You cannot be taking the 6th position’. My teacher, Mrs. Daniella Ojekere, gave me her support and announced to me that there was a second round. Thankfully, I was invited for the second round, and I was determined to put in my best.
“The second round came, and it was held in December 2021. The results were released in March of this year. From the results, the organisers of the competition announced that I had qualified for the national round. They said that this had never happened in Oyo State.” She went for the national round of competitions in late March 2022 in Abuja, and after two weeks of examinations, the results were released in June 2022. “There, it was announced that I was qualified for the International Olympiad round.”
The trajectory of the shy but vivacious Rosemary Ajiboye shows a youngster who rose from a dashing near-knockout at the local government level of the competitions to a conqueror through determination and hard work. She also acknowledged the support and prayers of her school principal, Fr. Domingo, and those of her teachers and others. “In the first round, I never took the competition seriously, and I had never gone to any competition before then. I felt it would be like our school mathematics examination, which I could just go and tackle; but when I saw that this could lead somewhere, and with the encouragement of my principal and teachers, I decided to do my best even though I felt discouraged at some point.”
When she explained what discouraged her, it turned out that other than ‘being discouraged’, she rather crumbled to psychological intimidation. “I felt discouraged because I saw many people that I felt were far better than me. So, I already thought I could not get anywhere in the competition.” A few days before the national round, she revealed that the weight of what might be expected of her burdened her heart and weighed her down. “The Saturday before the national competition in Abuja, I woke up that morning, and I cried and cried. I later said to myself, ‘Look, just go; fail in this thing; get out of there’. I called Miss Annabel that morning. She encouraged me, but I was still not convinced. In the night, I called her again, and I was still not convinced enough by her words. On Sunday, when Father Domingo came around, I told him my fears, but he also told me I could do it. That was when I returned to my books and studied like I had never done.”
Today, her sojourn at Sacred Heart College, Akinyemi, under the tutelage of Father Domingo and her teachers has brought her accolades, and she expressed her determination to do well for Nigeria, Oyo State, her school, her family, and herself. When she spoke, her innocence was evident as she stated that she wasn’t considering the competitions from a long-term perspective. She wasn’t even looking at any universities yet because, according to her, she is taking things as they come. However, she said, “Father has been more like a father to all of us. He has encouraged us in many ways, and his prayers have made a lot of impact.”
Father Domingo is naturally elated at the success of Miss Ajiboye. He said he felt gratitude to God because “it is not they that worketh or willeth but it is God that shows mercy.” According to the priest, it was a privilege from God because “it is not that we did more than others; there were people that did more than we did. Like Rosemary said, she came in 6th in the first round of the competition, but she put in more effort upon the inspiration of Mrs. Daniella and myself, and surprisingly, she is the only student that qualified from Oyo State.”
Fr Domingo noted that nothing good comes easy. “We prepared, prayed, and worked for it. There is no Olympic medal without preparation. It isn’t just about a miracle; you must have planned for it, laboured for it, and prayed for it. So, I feel very happy about the feat because we did not labour in vain. We are happy also because it has motivated many of our students to see and know that they too can do it.”
On what the school did to prepare her for the global challenge, Domingo said, “We did a few things to prepare her psychologically and academically, but most of the work is in Abuja. The Nigerian team should have travelled long before the competition, but logistics issues delayed them so much that they eventually couldn’t. They had just one week to prepare.”
He weighed in on what the country was in for and said, “You can imagine how the candidates from the United States, France, England, Germany, China, and even Switzerland must have prepared. Compare that to how it was with our children from Nigeria. We have confidence in their tutors at the National Mathematical Centre and we hope that we will smile in the end.”
The kind of support received by the school, the student-competitor, and the national flag-bearers was nothing encouraging. Sacred Heart College, Akinyemi, had to source funds and other resources all alone to ensure the participation of Oyo State in the competition. This presupposes that the representative of the state in the national competition had no support from the state. This is one of the least highlighted efforts of the school and state in the education sector. The state government, through the Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology, Mr. Rahman Abdu-Raheem, received Miss Ajiboye and expressed delight at her achievement. Abdu-Raheem also noted that this is an indication that the investments of the state administration in the education sector have been yielding desirable fruits. However, Rosemary Ajiboye and her school require much more than moral support. They need funds and equipment to prosecute her participation in Tokyo, just as Sacred Heart College, Akinyemi also need the state government’s support to further raise the flag of Oyo State and its education sector.
