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.
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!
Culled from the Facebook page of Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe
Who is Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe
Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe, born in July 1975 in Ovim, Isuikwuato, Abia State, is a distinguished Nigerian professor, inventor, engineer, author, and entrepreneur celebrated for groundbreaking contributions to microelectronics, medical robotics, and technology innovation.
An Igbo native with an early record of academic excellence, earning eight distinctions in secondary school, he graduated top of his class with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO).
Ekekwe’s academic achievements are exceptional: he holds two doctoral degrees, including a PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering with a focus on microelectronics and medical robotics from Johns Hopkins University, and a doctorate in Management from St. Clements University, alongside four master’s degrees, such as a Master of Technology from the Federal University of Technology Akure and another master’s from Tuskegee University in the United States.
