As students of the Lagos State University continue to break new grounds and push their frontiers of excellence in their various chosen fields, the University under the leadership of Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, mni, has also become relentless in giving them the turbo boost to aspire for more.
This avowed commitment to excellence was on display earlier on Wednesday, 27th March 2024, when the Vice Chancellor hosted Asein Patience Angel Osariemen, a 500 Level student of the Department of Fisheries of the University who successfully broke the Guinness World Record for the longest reading aloud marathon (Read-A-Thon).
Osariemen achieved the feat by reading aloud for 230 hours spanning 10 days from the 26th February to 7th March 2024.
While receiving the Edo State-born bibliophile and her team at her office on the 6th floor of the Babatunde Raji Fashola Senate Building, main campus, Ojo, the VC expressed her excitement at Asein’s feat.
She said, “This is a great feat for which we are all very proud.
“Your feat is particularly pleasing because, at a time when the reading culture is gradually dying among the young ones, you were able to read continuously for 230 hours, which is a bold and loud step towards encouraging reading habits among youths.”
She added, “With this noble feat, you not only wrote your name in gold, you showcased our university in a positive light to the world. LASU has great talents, excellent students, and our duty is to continue to give them the right environment to thrive. I believe this achievement will motivate your peers and every one of us to achieve whatever we set our minds to do.”
She went on to doll out an unstipulated cash reward, souvenirs, and plaque to the beautiful student for her display of courage and resilience.
Earlier in his remark, the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Prof. Moses Akanbi, who led the faculty’s delegation comprising the Head of Department of Fisheries, Prof. Abayomi Jimoh; and Director, DICT, Prof. Toyin Enikuomehin, to the programme, praised the VC for leading the university on the path of greatness. He said, “Our vision is for LASU to become the best in West Africa, and we are already breaking ground on different fronts. LASU is being imprinted on the global space deliberately, and it is due to the vision of the VC. I thank the VC for choosing to reward excellence.”
An elated Asein, when she got the chance to respond, was full of gratitude to VC and attributed her feat to the quality of training offered by LASU.
“When people ask how I managed to achieve this, I always tell them that LASU built the resilience to read long hours in me. My passion for reading was borne out of the long reading hours I had to undertake preparing for tests and examinations at the university. So I felt that if I could read long hours for exams, I could do it to promote my passion for the Sustainable Development Goals, which featured prominently in the books I read.
