By Lanre Adesanya
A journalist with Blueprint Newspaper Limited, Mr. Temitope Musowo has won a PhD scholarship award by Honourable Olusola Hakeem Sokunle,a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Oshodi-Isolo constituency 1.
Musowo emerged the overall winner of the award with highest score in all criteria set by the award panel and final screening exercise yesterday.
According to the chairman of the award panel, Mr Alademomi Odunayo, the criteria for the award includes; academic excellence, community development and volunteer programmes, research experience.
Odunayo explained further that Musowo lead other applicants in all the criteria to emerge winner.
Honourable Sokunle, who presented the award to the journalist in his office at the Lagos State House of Assembly complex on Tuesday, maintained that he believed the judgment of the panel was unbiased and thorough.
Speaking with journalists in his office after the presentation, the Lagos lawmaker said” I believe in the judgment of the panel because of the calibre of people who made up the panel, these are men and women of integrity who could not afford to play pranks with such important selection process.”
Sokunle speaking further said” the scholarship award is going to cover the awardee’s cost of tuition, other fees and living expenses throughout the duration of the PhD programme.”
The Lawmaker added that the award was in furtherance of his philanthropic activities and continued demonstration of his passion for education
“Of course, most of you have been to my constituency office several times to report the graduation ceremony of students that went through our free computer training programmes, and also the free distribution of General Certificate Examination (GCE) and UTME forms for indigent students seeking admission into higher institutions, which I do annually, so, I decided to step it up this year with a PhD scholarship award for one outstanding student,” Sokunle said.
Also speaking with journalists, the awardee, Mr Musowo expressed gratitude to the lawmaker for supporting his dream of becoming a PhD holder someday. “After I completed my MSc programme last year with a PhD grade, my dream is to proceed for a PhD abroad, but funding a PhD programme in a foreign University become a source of concern to me, however, with this award, I can see my dream coming through”.
“Now I know academic excellence has its rewards, I graduated with second class honour (upper division) in my undergraduate degree, I also graduated with a distinction in my Postgraduate Diploma, as well as a PhD grade with an aggregate of 6.2 in my MSc programme.”
“These outstanding academic records and my community development programmes put me ahead of other candidates who submitted entries for the scholarship, I am indeed grateful to God and Honourable Olusola Hakeem Sokunle for this gesture,” he added.
As the Lagos lawmaker promised to make the PhD scholarship an annual programme and also increase the number of the awardee with time, Temitope promised to support the lawmaker in the future to give more scholarships to deserving students.