Meet ABU’s best graduating student who won 9 awards

Daily Trust: What schools did you attend? A’eesha Abdullahi Abaji: I attended Plateau Private School Jos for my Nursery and Primary education; Airforce Girls’ Comprehensive School Jos for my secondary school education and then the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. DT: What were your favourite subjects? A’eesha: Mathematics and Biology. I loved sciences; I couldn’t have […]

Daily Trust: What schools did you attend?

A’eesha Abdullahi Abaji: I attended Plateau Private School Jos for my Nursery and Primary education; Airforce Girls’ Comprehensive School Jos for my secondary school education and then the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

DT: What were your favourite subjects?

A’eesha: Mathematics and Biology. I loved sciences; I couldn’t have done anything else. I didn’t like English, Literature and Book Keeping. So it had to be science.

DT: Where you the best student while in primary and secondary school?

A’eesha: In primary school, I was the best student in my own class but not the overall best in the set. And in secondary school, I was the second overall best.

DT: Who influenced you to become a medical doctor?

 A’eesha: I was a very indecisive person; I kept changing my future ambition to anything that sounds nice to me. But all my friends in science class wanted to be doctors, so when the time came to fill jamb forms, I just went with the crowd.

DT: Did any of your lecturers think you were too young to be a medical doctor?

A’eesha: None of my lecturers ever said I was too young; I wasn’t even the youngest in my class. But surprisingly, now that I am a doctor, a lot of people seem to think I look too young. Some have even out rightly asked me my age.

DT: What challenges did you face in the university?

 A’eesha: University was my first time of being on my own (unsupervised) so I was quite scared at the beginning. Everyone in my class looked and sounded very intelligent and I thought that I wouldn’t be equal to the task, I doubted myself a lot. I was also an introvert, so I had challenges making friends in my class in the beginning, and so I hardly had any information about a lot of things.

DT: How did you feel being the best graduating student?

 A’eesha: I felt immense gratitude to God Who uplifts whom He wills and I also felt very humbled.

DT: List the nine awards you won?

 A’eesha: They are: best in Community Medicine, Haematology, Internal Medicine, Medical microbiology, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Pharmacology, best female in Pharmacology, overall best, NMA prize for overall best.

 DT: What is your future plan?

A’eesha: To be a wife, mother and a specialist, in that order.

 DT: What do you want to specialize on?

 A’eesha: Paediatrics Cardiology, by the grace of Allah.

DT: Where are your parents from?

A’eesha: Dad is from Shabu in Lafia LGA and mum is from Daddare in Obi LGA of Nasarawa State, both are Gwandara by tribe.

DT: As a little girl, did anyone ever tell you that you will one day become a doctor?

 A’eesha: Of course! I can’t remember anyone ever telling me that I couldn’t. Everybody seemed to believe in me (far more than I believed in myself)