Precisely in 2015 when young Amos Ishaiku, was rescued from the bullets of deadly Boko Haram insurgency to the Home of Needy, tucked in the forest of Uhogua, Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State.
Today, home of the needy popularly referred to as the Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, camp provides shelter for the over 4, 000 persons.
Ishaiku never knew that some years down the line his story can best be described as from ‘devastation to distinction. Ishaku then came to the camp as a SS 2 student despite been psychologically, emotionally and socially devastated however devoted his time at the camp to his educational pursuit under the tutelage of Pastor Solomon Folorunsho.
In 2018 Ishaiku he did his Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination and thereafter did his Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and gained admission into the Edo State University, Uzairue where he graduated with First Class Honours in Chemical Engineering.
Ishaiku’s academic journey was decorated with numerous awards, including the Best Graduating Student 2023 Award, the Mike Ozekhome Award for Overall Best-Graduating Student, the Best Student Award in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Honours for Excellence in Entrepreneurship and the Faculty of Engineering.
There was jubilation at the IDP facility recently when Ishaku received a fully-funded PhD scholarship from the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA.
The Coordinator of the Home of the Needy, Pastor Solomon Folorunsho expressed his delight, stating that this achievement highlights the importance of creating an enabling environment for the less privileged. The camp currently houses over 4,000 children.
An elated Pastor Folorunsho said, “This is to let the world and our friends know that the support they are giving to the orphans, widows, displaced people, and the vulnerable in our centre is yielding great results.
“Besides those who graduated last year and those about to graduate, more than 200 are currently studying at different universities, with no fewer than 150 others processing their admissions.
“He is going to be studying at Phd level and he is going to be working with the teaching staff so the school will take care of him. He is a great inspiration to the young ones that are here almost every time of the day, you see all of them reading, everybody wants to be somebody so we want to appeal to government, individuals, private organizations to see the need to assist us, give us toilets, give us mattresses, give us better houses, toiletries, they lack towels, they lack toothpaste and toothbrush, soaps and food, they should come and offer scholarship to the students we have over 150 who just did JAMB” he said.
Elated Folorunsho recently accompanied Ishaku to the University of IIIinois Chicago, in the United States of America in pursuit of his education to Doctorate Degrees, PhD.
Shortly before he Ishaiku left stated; “I started here from SS2 under the tree, there were no classes and I remember I had only two notebooks and I saw a sack bag where I kept them, it was a really a tough time but, coming here was not basically to do schooling, where I was coming from was bad so my hope was that let me just come here and have a place to be able to sleep where I won’t hear all those gunshots, bombings and the rest.
“Because of the trauma I passed through, I found it difficult to concentrate because of the trauma, you see women and girls being raped, you see young boys taken captive so it was difficult for me to catch up in the school but at the end I was able to pass my SSCE in 2018 and got my admission, thank God for where I am today.”
