Twelve years seems like a lengthy time to graduate from the university, especially when you spend five of those years pursuing surgery and medicine and never finding your feet.
This was Ini Amah’s journey to obtaining his degree. The Nigerian graduate described how, during primary school, he consistently placed first in his class. He shared that he had struggled with math in junior high school before mastering the subject.
He was selected for a math competition in 2007/2008 due to his intelligence, and after weeks of preparation, he placed second overall at the state level. Although he didn’t represent his state nationally, he received a certificate and a cash prize.
He went on to participate in a math olympiad hosted by the National Mathematical Center that featured questions more difficult than his previous competition. Despite this, he placed second overall at the state level and received a certificate.
After passing his West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations with seven Bs and two Cs, placing him in the top 10 out of more than 300 students who took the test at his school, he felt like his dream of becoming a doctor was already in the bag.
He told Zikoko, “My medicine dream started at age 7 when I read ‘Gifted Hands’ by Ben Carson. I wouldn’t say I had a passion for it. I just bought the Ben Carson dream and looked forward to also becoming a doctor.”
He took the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), a Nigerian matriculation exam required for entrance to all higher schools. Yet he was unsuccessful in gaining admission into a medical program for two years. Refusing to stay home, he enrolled in a microbiology degree as a backup.
In 2013, he tried again in his first year of microbiology and was accepted into medicine. He switched departments because they were at the same university.
From then on, he dedicated his life to the tough subject, thinking, “I just knew I had to be serious because everyone kept saying that anyone who failed a course in the first year would be instantly withdrawn.”
Despite his commitment, enthusiasm, and anxieties, he couldn’t keep up with his mounting workload. It soon caught up with him. After three years of perseverance, he continued to receive mediocre grades and failed physiology and biochemistry, requiring him to retake all of his classes.
“The problem started in year three,” he recounted. “This was in 2016. Medical students take their first professional MBBS exam in the third year, and all our results from the first year up to then are averaged as part of our continuous assessment (CA) and scored over 40. The professional exam was to be scored over 60 and combined with the CA to make 100 marks. The pass mark was 50.”
“There was no particular pass mark for the CA, but it’s advised that you score at least 20 on your CA so you can work towards scoring 30 or more in the exam and increase your chances of passing. My CA for anatomy was 20, but it was between 14 and 15 for physiology and biochemistry. I tried my best in the exam, but I ended up failing those two subjects.”
He said his third and final attempt was in 2018 but he failed all three courses. “I still remember the day I saw the result—14 June 2018. My school posts the results on a noticeboard with a one-word remark beside each name: pass, resit, repeat, or withdraw.”
“I’d checked the noticeboard the night before, but it wasn’t there. Another classmate checked early the following day and saw it was up. So, they snapped the results and sent them to our class WhatsApp group. The remark beside my name was ‘withdraw’.”
The tragic news broke his heart. He was scared to tell his parents what had happened but he finally shared the news with her mother, and she got so upset that it affected her health.
He commented, “All those years of school fees, pocket money and anticipation had just gone like that. She’d even started making plans for my induction. It was obvious I’d shattered her hopes.”
Fortunately for him, his father received the news better. Though disappointed, he “didn’t say anything in anger and did his best to reassure me of his confidence in my academic skills.”
Still, Amah was depressed and felt terrible about his fate. He confessed to attempting suicide twice. He believes that the prayers his loved ones said for him are what have kept him alive.
After a while, he returned to school. He explained, “The school administration had given me a withdrawal letter, which I could take to other departments. If they accepted me, the school would just process my transfer.”
When his bid to join the faculty of pharmacy was denied, he returned to microbiology, which he had left to pursue medicine. He was admitted and enrolled in level 200 for the 2018–2019 academic year.
Even so, Amah stated that he had no regrets about the five years he spent studying medicine and surgery since “the discipline and training I got in medical school helped me in microbiology. Studying was easier, and I did much better.”
He earned a 4.34 CGPA upon graduating in 2024.
He reflected, “It took me 12 years to earn a degree, but I like to see my experience as a preparation for life. I didn’t make it as a doctor, but I learned lessons I’ll never forget. It was the first time I’d ever failed anything in my life. I literally went from winning awards in school to struggling to pass. Thankfully, I didn’t drown.”
