I wrote SSCE four times —Babcock best graduating student

Nineteen-year-old best graduating student of the Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Daniella Uzoamaka, speaks on her rough road to success, CHARLES ABAH writes
Looking at a king’s mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast” is one of the famous proverbs the late literary giant, Chinua Achebe, used in his award- winning novel, Things Fall Apart.
The maxim suggests that usually when one is admiring the success of an accomplished man, there is the temptation to think that he never experienced any difficulties or hard times in life.
The story of 19-year-old Uzoamaka Daniella, the 2014 best graduating student of the Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, underscores this adage.
The Public Administration first class graduate obtained a Cumulative Grade Point Average 4.86 out of 5.00 to emerge as the school valedictorian. With this accomplishment, she received the academic, leadership, community and spiritual awards during the university’s 12th convocation held on June 1, 2014.
Some of the honours she received are the President’s Award, Senior Vice-President Prize, the Dean, Business School Award and the Academic Programme award in Public Administration.
Looking at her academic record at the university, one would think that her road to success was tiled with gold through and through or that she was never associated with any manner of scholarly disappointment. This view is, however, far from reality.
In fact, before the harvest of scholastic successes, the youngster had witnessed some rough edges of academic frustration. Particularly, at her primary and secondary school levels, she was not just an average pupil, she also experienced unpleasant academic moments. For instance, she wrote the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination conducted by the West African Examinations Council and the National Examinations Council four times.
She notes with a touch of simplicity in her voice, “I have a piece of information for you. Do you know that I wrote the SSCE on four different occasions? The first was the private candidate November/December WASSCE; then my WAEC, NECO and another Nov/Dec examination. I did these examinations then because I had problem with Mathematics.
“You see, I realised at an early stage in my academic pursuit that examination malpractice is not a road to success. The farthest I can remember engaging in any examination malpractice was in my Junior Secondary School 1 class. Further, during my WAEC preparation, I was encouraged by the words of my school principal, Mrs. Oloriade, that it is better to fail honourably than to cheat. These words helped me to keep tight to my integrity in my exams.”
But what spurred her to continue with her education in spite of this initial hiccup? The Orlu, Imo State-born native, who attended Wellspring College, Omole Phase Two, Ikeja, Lagos, linked it to her twin sister, Gabriella. According to the lass, the academic excellence her sister recorded in school was her huge source of inspiration.