Dr. Ayodele Oni

I was so poor in Mathematics that I was nicknamed "I don't know Math (sic)" in Class 6 because I gave that as answer to my teacher when he asked me a question in class. JSS 1-3, same story. I think I had P7 in it in Junior WAEC. SS 1-2, similar story. Then in January 1999, second term into SS2, with GCE staring me in the face, I attended a private lesson. The teacher taught me Factorization and I realized I got it. His explanation was spot on. For the first time in my life, I understood a math topic clearly. Then I went back to JSS 1 math texbook for personal study and finished it within a week. Then moved to JSS 2 and finished it within 2 weeks. Then JSS 3 math, then SS1, then SS2. Then to GCE past questions. I sat for GCE in August 1999 or so during holiday after SSS2 and made a B2. Then WAEC in SSS3 in May 2000 and got B2 again (felt bad for this because I wanted A1). Meanwhile, I saw that many of my school mates in Science classes (who did Further Math) did not even have B2 that I had in Math in WAEC and that prompted me to enrol for another private lesson in Further Math. "If I could score higher in Math than many science students that did Further math, I should be able to do Further math too". I practiced a couple of topics in Further Math - Calculus, Partial Fraction etc - while waiting for OAU to resume, knowing I would need Mathematics to do well in Economics that I got admission for. Math soon became my favourite subject. Needless to say I had A in all but one of the Math courses I did from Year 1 to graduation in Ife. From being poor in Math to it becoming my best subject, it was a comeback I never saw coming. A turnaround that contributed largely to who I am today (my eventual grade in Economics helped largely by my scores in Math courses). In 2022, 23 years after, I searched for and reconnected with the private teacher that saved me in SS 2 in 1999.