Day I Met A Mentor In ADC

By Maureen Item

"Yoruba people and their funny names. Which one is Faj again?" I thought to myself as I glanced through the letter for application I received from my colleague. "This guy must be a funky man from Yankee," I said.
Suddenly, I realised it was an acronym after all, Femi Akintunde-Johnson (FAJ).
Then my desire to meet him face-to-face grew.
He is going to be my coach for the second 'Advanced Clinic on Language Use' class.

Maureen Item

Behold, there he was in front of the class as I walked in to sit.
A refined gentleman indeed: tall, slim, soft-spoken, with good diction.
As I listened to his lectures, I looked out for errors but I was disappointed.
He cautiously spoke the language like the British.
I was happy to know that he was a product of my alma mater, the University of Jos. Hmmm, a great Josite, for real!
"Can you kindly introduce yourself to the class?" he said in a soft tone after lashing me for bringing my baby along.
FAJ was not just good in the act, his desire to impart knowledge and correct the countless errors made in the media industry could be seen.
I may not have interacted with him fully, but his simplicity, charisma and love for God remain undebatable.
Once in a while, he would deliberately use biblical illustrations. This, I also fancied.
In all these, I noticed he carried everyone along as he would call us by our names to ask for our contributions or questions.
I will certainly miss his lectures, because each encounter with FAJ offered me an opportunity to learn something new.
I look forward to making good use of my experiences and skills acquired to better my organization.
Femi Akintunde-Johnson, a rare gem and mentor indeed.

- Maureen Ogechi Item, Reporter with Raypower 100.5 FM (Graduate of September, 2018 ADC-2 Workshop/Training)