private varsity students
Report from some private universities in Nigeria shows that some students are defying tight schedules to embrace entrepreneurship
Nineteen-year-old Miss Adepeju Okunuga, a final year Accounting student of the Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
However, Okunuga, who is the first child of her parents, is happy with what her parents are able to provide for her upkeep.
According to PUNCHNG, Interestingly, Okunuga, whose father is a lawyer and mother an insurance practitioner, is known among her peers on campus as a tailor, better still, a fashion designer.
Okunuga, who completed her secondary education at the Federal Government Girls’ College Odogbolu, Ogun State in 2010, learnt the art of fashion designing during her first two summer breaks as an undergraduate.
She says, “I started learning how to sow from my 100 level summer break which lasted for four months, and by the time I got to my third year, I had perfected the skill of making clothes.
“I did not go to any fashion designing school. It was just a roadside tailor in our neighbourhood in Ketu, because I didn’t want to go far due to the Lagos traffic that is usually hectic.”
Explaining how she goes about making the clothes, especially since the university operates strict rules, Okunuga says she uses the single weekend break that every student is entitled to in a month to work on the orders placed by her customers.
Rather than engaging in mundane activities as some of her colleagues do during the monthly break, which runs from Friday to Sunday, Okunuga uses the opportunity to get the desired fabrics and sews the clothes to the taste of her customers at her parents’ Lagos residence.
She is quite familiar with many textile stores on Lagos Island, including those at the popular Balogun Market, while also patronising businesspersons who import fabrics from different African countries and beyond.
“I don’t usually have time for other things during these weekends I am off campus. I do the sewing all day as soon I get all the materials from the market. Sometimes, I work all through the night to meet with the demands. This is especially so because I have to get back to school on Sunday.
“However, on occasions when I can’t finish with the sewing on Sunday, my parents support me. They simply write a note to the school management, explaining why I won’t return on campus on schedule.”
As the class representative, Okunuga, who has two sewing machines and a weaving machine, says she ensures that there are no classes on Fridays to enable her to head for home to meet with customers’ demands.
Noting that she bills them – customers – depending on their sizes, preferred styles and its complexity, Okunuga hints that for every trip she makes in a month, she realises nothing less than N40,000 as profit.
As the Ikenne, Ogun State-born lady plans to defend her final year project soon, she confesses that she will go into the vocation full time on completion of her studies.
She declares, “After my project defence, I still have a year more to spend on campus due to the Memorandum of Understanding that our university signed with the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria that will see us become chartered accountants in another academic calendar (500 level).
