Young people often ask me: “Professor, Dangote, Elumelu, Ovia… none graduated top of their classes, yet they became billionaires. How do you reconcile that?” Let me explain.
Markets and classrooms run on different operating systems. An A in calculus does not guarantee an A in customer satisfaction for noodles. Academic grades are not destiny—they are indicators of process. What counts is not the grade itself, but the discipline, effort, and tenacity that produced it.
University A’s First Class may be a struggle to achieve at University B with tougher standards. In secondary school, I was not the most gifted mind, but I was relentless. What talent withheld, hard work delivered. One teacher called me “oku na egbu akwukwo”—the fire that consumes books—because if reading Modern Biology four times was the key to an A, I would light that fire.
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In university, classmates could earn Bs effortlessly. I sweated for As. Effort became my equalizer. The smartest student I met at FUT Owerri never finished first year—brilliance without process is fragile. He missed exams out of nonchalance and was dismissed. Look closely at Ovia, Elumelu, and Dangote—not their transcripts but their processes: resilience, grit, adaptive learning. Over a long horizon, a hardworking C-student often outperforms a complacent B-student, because process endures where talent can stagnate.
Make “A+” in your PROCESS today!
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