His belief that education engenders revival, freedom and emancipation informs his resolve to help brilliant but indigent students. To achieve this, he established the Wole Olanipekun Scholarship Scheme (WOSS) to ensure that students in need of funds to continue their academic careers received help. ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA reports that Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), gave scholarships to 206 students during this year’s edition of the 20-year-old scheme.
Legal luminary and one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Oluwole Oladapo Olanipekun (SAN), believes that education is a weapon against poverty and its attendant societal problems.
Consequent to this belief, he accords education the most important position in his scheme of things. He has devoted enormous resources to the education sector to ensure that his people are free from the encumbrances of illiteracy and poverty.
Apart from education contributing enormously to the enviable status he had attained in his profession and in the society, Olanipekun is also passionate about brilliant but indigent students whose ambitions are threatened by paucity of funds.
In his over 40 years of practice at the Bar; he had ploughed back his God-given wealth to education in terms of sponsoring thousands of less-privileged students in their academic careers and building infrastructure in most of the nation’s tertiary institutions.
While practising at Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, his rented chambers along Unity Road and God’s Grace Chambers; the one he built along University Road in Tanke area, used to play host to hundreds of students who are indigenous to Ekiti State and those from other parts of the country who needed financial support.
By the time he relocated to Lagos in 2002 where he currently has the headquarters of his law firm, Olanipekun’s support for education had grown in leaps and bounds and he seems not tired of giving succour to students who are in need.
That explains the motivation behind the establishment of the Wole Olanipekun Scholarship Scheme (WOSS) in 1996 to assist students to realise their dreams of becoming great personalities.
Initially, the scheme was established to assist students who are indigenous to Olanipekun’s hometown, Ikere-Ekiti. However, as it develops over the years, it has incorporated beneficiaries from the other 15 local government areas of Ekiti State and other parts of the country.
Thousands of students in secondary schools, universities and Nigerian Law School had benefited from the scholarships given out every year by the WOSS Principal, Olanipekun.
The case of a student who is not indigenous to Ikere-Ekiti who benefited from this year’s edition, Hameed Oyekanmi Ajibola, was peculiar. Mr Ajibola, who hails from Oyo State and a law graduate of Bayero University, Kano (BUK), could not raise funds to further his career at the Nigerian Law School.
Just two days before the scholarship award ceremony, he was nominated by a member of WOSS Board of Trustees, Dr. Gani Adeniran. He had earlier known Adeniran two weeks before then. Olanipekun had told Adeniran, a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, to get a Muslim from Oyo State to be among the 14 beneficiaries of the scheme for the Nigerian Law School for this year’s edition.
Ajibola, who had never met Olanipekun before, had to travel to Ikere on the day of the ceremony to receive his cheque. He was overwhelmed and prayed profusely for the sponsor.
Ajibola said: “I got your (Olanipekun’s) message from Dr. Gani Adeniran who happens to be my referral in respect to the financial support you have rendered to me, sir.
“I use this opportunity to show my sincere appreciation and to say a thank you for your helping hand. May the Almighty God ease all your affairs and enrich you the more sir. I am most grateful, sir.”
There was a story of the best graduating Law student at the University of Ilorin about 10 years ago who benefited from Olanipekun’s gesture. After graduating from the Law School, he was too poor to buy his wig but was assisted by the Senior Advocate.
WOSS brings together stakeholders in education every year at Olanipekun’s country home, Iyaniwura House, along Moshood Road in Ikere-Ekiti.
Olanipekun, a man renowned for his modesty and humility, rolled out the drums this year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his scholarship scheme. He was joined by members of the WOSS Board of Trustees led by renowned educationist and retired school principal, Mr. Sunday Omoyeni.
Dignitaries who attended this year’s edition of the scheme were the Ogoga of Ikere-Ekiti, Oba Samuel Adejimi Adu Alagbado, Agirilala Ogbenuotesoro II; Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Dr. Kolapo Olusola; former Deputy Governor, Chief Abiodun Aluko; Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka; Chairman, Ikere Local Government Area, Mr. Ola Alonge; member representing Ikere Constituency 1, at the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Mr. Wale Ayeni; Commissioner for Education, Mr. Jide Egunjobi and Prof. Toyin Bamisaye, among others.
As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the scheme, Olanipekun donated customised exercise books to all public primary and secondary schools in Ikere-Ekiti.
A total of 206 students received scholarships in this year’s edition and the breakdown are as follows: beneficiaries in Ikere secondary schools (155); undergraduates who hail from Ikere Local Government Area (24); undergraduates from other LGAs in Ekiti (13) and special recipients from Ekiti, other states and Law School (14).
Chairman of the occasion who is also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Olayinka, described Olanipekun as a colossus who performed wonders while serving as the Pro- Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the nation’s premier university.
Olayinka said: “He (Olanipekun) paid great attention to details as UI Pro-Chancellor.
“He built a lecture theatre for the Faculty of Law at UI.
“Wole Olanipekun is a gift to humanity. When he became Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, he funded the building of the V-C’s Lodge.”
The Ogoga, Oba Adu, described Olanipekun as a “rare and special gift to Ikere land, urging the beneficiaries to reciprocate by working hard to make the best grades in their studies.
The monarch said: “During my primary school days, I knew five pupils in my school who were very brilliant but never had the opportunity of proceeding to secondary school because of financial constraints.
“This scheme has clocked 20 years and we have many people who had become great through the benevolence of Asiwaju. This man funds the scheme with his personal resources and I want you to repay him by justifying what he has given to you.”
Deputy Governor, Dr. Olusola, described Olanipekun as a mentor and leader, saying it was not a surprise that the Ogoga recently bestowed on him the chieftaincy title of the Asiwaju of Ikere.
He said: “This gesture is the mark of a quintessential leader having key projects on all the roads that lead to the centre of Ikere. His philanthropic activities go beyond the borders of Ikere.
“Those of us coming behind you are now challenged to contribute our own quota to the development of this town. To the beneficiaries, I want to advise you to be diligent in your studies, be serious with your studies and become great in life.”
Commissioner for Education, Mr. Egunjobi, said Olanipekun’s gesture is worthy of emulation, noting that education is the only industry in the state and the gains made in public examinations such as the National Examination Council (NECO) must be sustained.
Olanipekun explained how the scheme began from a humble beginning to become an oasis that has been giving solace to students within and outside Ekiti where it began.
He praised the WOSS Board of Trustees for being “methodical, clinical, focused and honest” in nurturing the master seed sown 20 years ago which has grown into an oak.
Olanipekun said: “We started from a very humble beginning; we must not forget education which is the legacy of Western Nigeria that we all grew up to know.
“Before we instituted the scheme, all students of Ondo State origin used to come to my chambers in Ilorin then saying ‘how do we pay our school fees?’ Ikere currently has 77 professors, how do we make future professors, deputy governors, governors and presidents out of them?
“There is poverty in the land which affects the education of many children. I want to appeal most profoundly to the beneficiaries that when you grow up, look back to the less-privileged and assist them.
“The government cannot do it all; the greatest thing you can be remembered for is not the wealth you accumulate but the lives you touch.
“Education is our heritage but it is dehydrating, evaporating and dying. I want to appeal to our Law School beneficiaries to utilise what we gave to you by concentrating on your law studies.”
