Tara Fela-Durotoye

Bayo Omoboriowo was sleeping on metal. Not metaphorically. At the University of Lagos, unable to afford his own hostel accommodation, he was squatting in a friend's room and sleeping on the frame of a bunk bed without a mattress. The arrangement was uncomfortable, but something else about the room began to bother him more. When Bayo went to sleep, his roommates were reading. When he woke up, they were already reading again. He wasn't. Before university, by his own account, education had not been one of his strengths. In a secondary-school mock examination, he says he recorded six Fs, four passes and two Cs. He also admits that cheating had been part of how he approached examinations. At university, after becoming a Christian, he decided he would no longer cheat. That left him with an uncomfortable reality: if he wanted different results, he would actually have to study.

At first, the pressure came from embarrassment. How could everyone in the room be reading while he slept? So he began to read too. Eventually, imitation became a habit. He says his first-semester results were mostly Bs, with one C. Later, he recalls recording a 4.89 CGPA in one semester. When Bayo tells the story today, he does not make intelligence the hero of it. He makes the room the hero. “What changed? Community.” and he has a phrase for it: community incubation.