www.unilorin.edu.ng
vc@unilorin.edu.ng
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP
Text of the Address Delivered by the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, Prof. Is-haq O.
Oloyede, on the Occasion of the Matriculation Ceremony of the 2011/2012 Fresh Students
of the University on Thursday, February 5, 2012 at the Auditorium, University of Ilorin.
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP
It is my utmost pleasure, as it is always on occasions like this, to welcome you to the matriculation ceremony
of today. On behalf of the entire University community, I thank you all, especially you new members, for
choosing to be part of us. It is my fervent prayer that all of you matriculating today will not “graduate”
prematurely through expulsion, death or any unforeseen circumstances and you shall live long after your
programmes here to thank God for making you pass through this great University.
My dear students, I feel elated to welcome you formally to the University of Ilorin, which each of you becomes
its bonafide member with this occasion. As you must be aware, your matriculation numbers that will you get
after this ceremony is a badge of honour that proclaims you as students of the University. This occasion is
symbolic as it defines your future because even if you return to the University of Ilorin after your first degrees
as some of us proudly did in the past, you won’t matriculate again. In this respect, you will agree with me that
this is a solemn and life-changing occasion. I congratulate you all!
I congratulate you sincerely on the success of being part of this occasion because I know it was not easy for
you all to come this far. All (or almost all) of you must have read studiously, burning the midnight oil on
many occasions; and prayed fervently, fasting all day on some occasions, to cross the hurdles of the
examinations you partook in to attain this height. I thank God for you and I want you to know that you are
special.
Having come this far, it is therefore important that you sit up and guard your admission jealously. All what
this requires is for you to work hard and look before you leap. When you work hard, you will not have any
academic problem that will threaten your status or good standing. When you look before you leap, you will
not violate the University rules and regulations and your character will be unblemished. In fact, it is character
and learning that the University of Ilorin is renowned for and it is your responsibility that as from today, you
hold aloft the banner of probity and scholarship, the motto of the University (i.e. probitas doctrina).
Let me share with you some of the messages that I had shared with your predecessors since I assumed this
responsibility more than four years ago because truth is constant. What I said on various occasions like this is
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still relevant today. I encourage you to maximize your own gains by reading the addresses so that you will
have the privilege that others did not have. I believe if you act accordingly as good ambassadors of your
families, you will realize that your academic sojourn in the University of Ilorin will be rewarding and fulfilling.
I pray that God guide your way and strengthen your resolve to be excellent.
For the benefit of hindsight, on December 21, 2007 at the matriculation of the 2007/2008 fresh students, I
charged that You Must Set Forth At Dawn where I tellingly alluded to a book by Wole Soyinka on the need for
you to start well from the dawn of your studentship: “You are enjoined to steer clear of troubles and bad
conduct. There is zero tolerance for bad conduct here. This is verifiable from our antecedents. This University
is consistently after excellence in scholarship and good behaviour. Without mincing words, keeping bad
company is strongly detested here as in all focused and ambitious communities. Expulsion is the simplest
reward for keeping bad companies here at the University of Ilorin.” Please take note that for you to belong to
any club or honour any invitation from a club, you must be sure the club is on the list of the currently
registered clubs in the University. The list is on our website.
Moreover, on the matriculation day of the 2008/2009 fresh students on December 18, 2008, my address to
you was captioned Dare To Excell: Start Where You Stand! What I essentially told you as fresh students was
to reflect as I did on the short poem by Frank Outlaw. I encourage you to memorize the poem, watch it
because it is worth it. It goes thus:
Watch your thoughts,
for they become words;
Watch your words,
for they become actions,
Watch your actions,
for they become habits;
Watch your habits,
for they become character;
Watch your character,
for it becomes your destiny.
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Similarly, my address to the 2009/2010 fresh students who had their own matriculation on January 19, 2010
was themed Be The Best You Can. Part of what I told them goes thus: “…if success is your goal as it should be,
you have to make use of the most valuable resource at your disposal: time. The more you are able to control
your time, the more you are able to control your life. Use your time judiciously and know that procrastination
is the greatest assassin of opportunity. Do not assassinate the opportunities lying ahead of you by wasting
your time on trivia and trifles. Do not murder your future by wasting your limited time in the University on
frivolities and trivialities. When you ‘kill’ time as people say by wasting it away, you can’t say you are not a
killer. Let your every minute count for you so that you will be among those to be counted when the counting
comes.” So, take time and keep to time.
Last year, precisely on February 1, 2011 when the 2010/2011 fresh students were matriculating, I anchored
my speech on the saying, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained, and like the previous ones, I believe the
message is also relevant because it concerns in part wasting time and not minding one’s business:
“One serious problem with many people is that they don’t mind their own business. As a result of that, they
lose at all fronts. I understand that many young people including students waste their precious time on what
does not concern them. What is your business with whether one European football club wins or loses? What
concerns you about whether one musician sings better than the other or that an actor should have won an
Oscar? Or what relevance is fashion to your purpose at the University that you would waste time discussing
models and designers? These are some of the ways through which people nowadays waste their time and
misdirect their energies,” I said.
In furtherance of the need to be mindful of your time, I share the sentiment of an author who wrote in this
regard: “To realize the value of a life-time, ask a person in the last throes of death. To realize the value of four
years, ask the captain/coach whose team does not qualify for the World Cup or a politician that has just lost
an election. To realize the value of a year, ask a student who has a spill-over or the one that fails
WAEC/UTME. To realize the value of one month, ask a woman who has given birth to a premature baby. To
realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly paper. To realize the value of one day, ask a daily wage
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earner who has ten mouths to feed. To realize the value of one hour, ask the person that was late for a job
interview. To realize the value of one minute, ask a person who has missed a flight to an important
destination. To realize the value of one second, ask a person who has luckily avoided a head-on collision with
an articulated vehicle or trailer. To realize the value of one millisecond, ask a person who is placed second in
an Olympic race.”
All the same, I will encourage you to look at the addresses, which are available on the University website, and
read them before you leap. Religion is all advice and advice is useless if it is not used. If you look before you
leap, you wont step on the wrong side of the law and everything will be alright with you.
In conclusion, when I told you earlier that you are special, some of you might not appreciate how special they
are until they see the picture. For the current session, you may want to know, some 39,040 candidates applied
for admission to the University of Ilorin out of which 22,969 candidates met the general minimum
requirement or passed the test (with 50% grade and above).
Out of the 22,969 that passed, only 6,926 of you or 30.3% could be admitted because of the limited carrying
capacity of the University. This percentage will still shrink further if you consider the number of those who
applied originally to the University. I urge you to look before you leap so that you will not waste a rare
opportunity that some 30,418 candidates that sat for the same examinations as you did do not have, an
opportunity that confers on you a special status.
On a final note, always remember as I encouraged you that what is what doing at all is worth doing on time.
Therefore, you must set forth at dawn in the University of Ilorin by daring to excell right from the start here.
You must be determined to be the best you can be positively by doing away with distractions that may
threaten your ambition because, as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Always look before
you leap in all situations and you will be assured that you will not have any reason to regret now or later.
Dress well, act well, always wear your identification card, study seriously, exercise your body at the sports
complex and be prayerful. It shall be well with you.
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I thank you all for your attention and I wish you a safe and successful journey through the University of Ilorin,
which we believe is God’s own University.
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