Lagos lawmaker gives Journalist PhD scholarship Award

A journalist with Blueprint Newspaper Limited, Mr. Temitope Musowo has
bagged a PhD scholarship award to be bankrolled 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 judgement of the panel was unbiased
and thorough.

Speaking with journalists in his office after the presentation , the
Lagos lawmaker said” I believe in the judgement 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.