IN its quests to engender the culture of self-reliance and enterprise among the teeming youths population, Life Can Be Greater (LCBG), an organisation which prides itself as a “solution-provider to everyday problems” has instituted a process aimed at tasking the creative ability of undergraduates.
The LCBG kicked off its inaugural campaign with an ideas contest, which they coined “solutions session” held at Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo campus, recently.
In anticipation of an engaging interaction with the organisers, the students, many of whom are already battle-weary from the protest over the tuition hike and prolonged faceoff of the institution’s management with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (LASU Chapter), fanned out en masse as they occupied the faculty hall of the Social Sciences, venue of the event.
After filling the hall to the brim, the students got the first shock of the day as a few dozen of the participants were immediately rewarded with a N20,000 cheque in the first few minutes of the event. It was a simple game: they were all to look under their seats and pull out a brown envelope tightly sealed beneath it.
Upbeat, the students ripped open their envelopes; but while some hissed as they read out the words printed on the cards, ‘Better luck next time,’ there were rapturous screams from various parts of the hall as others proudly waved their new found prize which is to be applied towards their tuition.
Expectedly, this got the event to a fiery head start as the students decided to seize the moment and not only compete for the remaining envelopes with various size cheques, but contend among themselves for the two big prizes: the half and full tuition scholarship on offer, a development the organisers described as heartwarming since they set out to challenge the students to think creatively and proffer solutions to everyday problems in their communities, while rewarding those who come up with brilliant simple answers to internal and national issues.
Marketing Executive and PR Director of LCBG, Mr. Derin Olukayode, said Life Can Be Greater is a movement that proffers solutions to societal issues on a small scale and galvanises citizens to push for their implementation on a wider scale. “We are looking for practical solutions, we don’t have to wait for the government for everything.
“There are little things we can do to make life better for ourselves and the next person and that is what we want to inculcate into the students. Life, indeed, is hard; schools fees are high, but life can be greater if we focus our minds on solving those little things that make the country and ourselves greater.
“LCBG is here to let you know there is hope. If I have learned anything in life, it is the power of hope and the power of one person to change the world by giving people hope. Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela, Obama and even the young girl from Pakistan, Malala, are examples of the power of what one person can achieve,” he said.
During the solutions session, several pertinent issues directly affecting students were thrown up, among which include the worrisome trend of students dropping out of school in large numbers every year because of the high tuition, inadequate funding of education, insecurity problems, incessant disruption of academic calendar owing to ASUU strike, and absence of accommodation for LASU students.
“We are worried because those that drop out of school today are the ones who will become the society’s nemesis tomorrow, and no matter how successful we become, we still have to live in a society with a high level of hoodlums and thugs. Also, we wonder why WIFI network is free in other universities like the University of Lagos (UNILAG); yet, we pay a lot in LASU to subscribe to the internet connection in this ICT generation,” one of the students said.
At the end of the ideas contest, two winners emerged. Oluwafemi Okunleye, a 300-level student of Accounting, won the full tuition scholarship for his didactic analysis of the accommodation problem in LASU and his solution of the state government engaging private sector organisations like Life Can Be Greater, in a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) mechanism that will alleviate the suffering of students who travel long distances to attend lectures.
Lawal Ismail Omoniyi emerged second best and walked away with the partial scholarship for inspiring his fellow students to catch the entrepreneurial bug early in life, because “nobody owes us a job after graduating. It is up to us to create the future we really want and one thought-provoking seminar like this is enough to change people’s lives,” he noted.
An elated Omoniyi told newsmen after the event that he was happy to have won the partial scholarship. “It is really a great day for me. When I came here, I wasn’t expecting to win any money, but along the line I was inspired by what was happening in the hall and I called up my spirit of determination and psyched myself to come up with a brilliant idea, which fetched me N100,000.
“I also thank the organisers of this programme, they have demonstrated that, indeed, life can be greater. I emphasised during my presentation that one seminar is enough to change people’s lives and build up the entrepreneurial spirit.”
A member of LCBG, Ms. Omorinsojo, explained that the group could not afford to give every student grants and decided not to award the scholarships based on academic performance, “because we believe each student is qualified to be a change agent and history has shown that bright students do not have the monopoly of creative ideas and solutions.”
Kemi ‘Lala’ Akindoju, the MC of the event, said – “We are happy we fulfilled our mission, which is that for the students, even if they didn’t win any money, many would be leaving the hall challenged and inspired to change their environment by looking inwards for solutions to their own problems.”
While commenting of the initiative, the president of the Students’ Union, LASU, Comrade Nurudeen Yusuf, popularly known as Optimist, was full of praise for the LCBG team for bringing such huge relief to students through the programme.
“We look forward to more rewarding cooperation with the LCBG team. We believe there can be greater life in LASU, in Lagos, and even in our country. As a student body, we have the vision of launching a students’ endowment fund where we can dip our hands into some millions of naira and give to indigent students. With this, the public will have more confidence in us and even support the project.”
