CHEVENING LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE QUESTION
My perspective about leadership is solely channeled to being a problem solver. I believe strongly that my relevance in life is connected to solving other people's problems. This has led to the choice of my career path. At first, studying medicine and becoming a medical doctor was the only perceived measure to saving the world, as I observed that the rate of unemployment and death to chronic ailments (such diabetes, stroke etc.) among aged people I my community was at alarming rate.
Agriculture was seen as even the best approach to saving my people as it is preventive ( with the knowledge of nutrition) rather than curative as it is with medicine. I believe training them to adopt good nutrition ethics would prevent them from these chronic ailments and also agricultural activities in terms of production, processing, storage and marketing would reduce the rate of unemployment among the people I my community. I got more motivated in this line when I lost my uncle to diabetes, and I have since then buckled up to go as any length in studying the course to achieve the necessary skills and knowledge to bringing my dreams to reality.
Problem-solving is my leadership skill, which I have demonstrated in most of the organizations and environments I have found myself over the years. Among them is during my undergraduate days when I was an assistant course representative precisely in year two. There was a day, having been thoroughly taught a topic titled "Calculus " in Mathematics for Agriculture and Bioscience I(MAT115)by Professor Animajun Jim a lecturer in charge, it still looked unclear to a larger part of the class. As I observed this, I moved to the podium where I addressed my colleagues on how we could use a free period to have a tutorial on lessons that seemed confusing. We all agreed to a weekend day which was a Saturday. Having reached an agreement with them, I approached the then scholarship holder of year 3 who happened to be our immediate senior to assist on the issue on ground. He agreed and eventually took us on the tutorial and we all had the subject more clearer in the end.
Also, as a leader of "group VII" during a practical course titled Practical Village Extension activities(AXR 402) and Research Methods in extension in 2014/2017 session. students were grouped into different groups and each group was deployed to various neighboring local communities to exercise the practices of extension and research in the rural areas. My group was deployed to Idofian, a village in the outskirts of Ilorin, capital of kwara state, Nigeria. At the stage of accessing the Interview Schedule method of data collection, my group was faced with challenges of communication due to differences In language between inhabitants of the community and my assigned group speaker and other members. I took the position of a translator as I am of the Same ethnic group and could understand the language of community dwellers. I was able to get rid of the barrier that could have restricted us from assessing the necessary information from the people of the community. In the end , were opened to a well detailed information.
Furthermore, during the farm practical training year I was the group leader of "group VII" this same 2014/2015 session. It was Christmas where all the students had to travelled to their respective homes for celebration, As the group leader, I volunteered to stay behind and look after our planted vegetables and chickens we were raising. This led to successful practical sessions as the group was saved of the problem that would have aroused from death of plants and poultry birds due to inadequate feeding and management during the break.
I hope I am granted the opportunity to strengthening my leadership skills in order to achieve my goals of solving people's problem with the Chevening scholarship to further my studies.