Nigerian girl, Boubini Miyensinte Jones-Wonni, 22, was the youngest but best graduated medical student at the Howard University, USA, in May.
That stellar performance just earned her a scholarship into the Harvard University Medical School for residency (post-graduate training) in internal medicine — a feat she shared with only one of her fellow graduands. America had better brace itself for more scholastic feats! Brilliance has been the lot of Jones-Wonni’ right from childhood in her native Nigeria.
Born on 23 October, 1999 — the year Nigeria returned to democracy — she is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Jones-Wonni from Arogbo, Ese-Odo local government area of Ondo State. Since the very beginning of her education at Banky’s Private School, Apo, Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sheer brilliance has been her alter ego.
So acute was the young mind of Boubini that her teachers pushed her to sit for the common entrance examination into secondary school in primary three. She passed — and brilliantly too — and earned admission into the Word of Faith Group of Schools, Abuja. When she passed out of the school at 14 in 2014, she was the valedictorian and best graduate — and probably the youngest too.
In her final year, the school recognized her brilliance and rewarded her with free tuition. Perhaps it was also grand recognition of the acuity of her mind that she was made library prefect. Indeed, only the deep call to the deep!
However, Word of Faith Group of Schools would only be her platform to academic exploits abroad, albeit initially via a Nigerian-funded scholarship. After virtually crushing another public test, she earned one of the slots in the Special Education Scholarship Programme for Niger Delta Students, under the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP).
She was to study medicine and surgery in the United States. But she had to earn a degree in a relevant discipline prior to entering medical school, as is the practice in the United States. She got admitted into Miles College, Alabama, to read for a degree in biological sciences. As she did in her primary school when she spent three instead of six years, she made her degree requirements in just three years, instead of four.
The amazing thing about this feat was that she wasn’t even a book worm. She fully participated in healthy student union politics, thus pointing to a well-rounded development of her mind. She was secretary of finance at that college’s Student Government Association (SGA). At the end of it all, she emerged best graduated student of the Department of Natural Science and Mathematics at 18.
Four years later, she repeated that umpteenth feat at Howard University, Washington DC, and on the strength of that, clinched a scholarship for post-graduate studies in internal medicine at the Harvard University Medical School.
This is a truly thrilling story of made-in-Nigeria, polished in America – just like Tobi Amusan in athletics, who set two world records in one night and gloriously became the first Nigerian World Champion in track-and-field.
As Boubini was carefully nurtured in a private school in the FCT, Tobi found her running shoes in a Nigerian public school at Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. As PAP gave Boubini’s minds the initial wings to soar in the USA, Tobi got adopted by Dapo Abiodun, governor of her home Ogun State, as part of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports adopt-an-athlete initiative, in her final push for her world title win. Indeed, these are two Nigerian stories worth crowing about, for they show there is no limit to excellence and greatness if the right things are done.
There is biting symbolism in Boubini’s story. Here was a child born in the same year Nigeria returned to democracy — and see how she has bloomed! Yet, she’s nowhere near her peak. How might Nigerian have been, had it made such progress in 22 years of democracy as Citizen Boubini! That’s food for thought!
Still, the comfort — and it’s not just cold comfort: despite the present travails, all is not lost. Things can be better.