Ajah Excel: A story of Grit and Success and Impact

How MTN Nigeria Restored My Lost Hope

My name is Ajah Excel Anayo,
This story is how a “Yello Brand” restored hope to a hopeless child.

I had completed my secondary education as the best student in WASSCE and third Best in NECO in 2008 from Federal Government College Okigwe.

For lack of sponsorship, I couldn’t write JAMB that year till 2011 after I had raised some money from a teaching job I took.

Fortunately, I wrote JAMB and scored 277 and 264 in post utme, so I got admission to study Information Management Technology in Federal University of Technology Owerri.
Then the big question “?”, How will I pay acceptance, how will I do clearance, how will I pay school fees , What of accommodation, text books etc.
Fortunately, my friend from FGC okigwe met me in FUTO and gave me N25,000 to pay my acceptance. Another of my FGC Okigwe student took me in to stay in his room.

That was how I got into FUTO.
Sincerely, I didn’t bring anything to FUTO except two shirts and two trousers and 4 JAMB past questions I used for tutorial for predegree students.

So I started looking for scholarship opportunities, All through 100level, I didn’t win any Before the semester exams, we were told that those who had not paid school fees will not write the exams. I became so scared and started looking for help all over.

One morning I decided to call the office line of FGC Okigwe Vice Principal, Mrs Ebere Dike. I told her that her best student in 2008 WASSCE wants to drop out for lack of sponsorship and asked I if the school could help in anyway.
She told me that the principal who knew me had left and the current one is the third principal since I graduated. Finally, she promised to present my case.
As God would have the new Principal Mrs. Rose N. Nwachukwu took pity and paid my school fees. That was how I wrote the exam.

Results were released and I came top of my class with a 4.45 gpa
In my second year, the same challenge surfaced again, this time I almost dropped out.

Then came the light of hope
I got to learn about MTN Foundation Scholarship on the Internet from a scholarship website and my CGPA met the requirement.

I applied and got enlisted for the exam. 13th of March 2013, MTN Nigeria restored hopes to me and many others with an award of N200,000 yearly.
With that money, I Paid my second-year fees, bought my first laptop I used to start a side hustle. MTN Foundation made good their promise and I received that support till I graduated
Before I forget, Within same year I got the scholarship, I thought of how I could help other students who are indigent like me get access to scholarship information.

In 2013 I started an online platform called Nigerian University Scholarships. It grew so quickly and became the go-to portal for scholarship and other educational resources.

Today the platform has grown to become Worldscholarshipforum.com with over 2 million monthly visitors looking for scholarship information on the portal and has grown to birth a company Silicon Africa that now host Smfest one of Nigeria 🇳🇬 largest tech innovation conference.

Today we help over 2 million students every month access information on scholarships and other financial aid programmes through World Scholarship Forum.

I am happily married and have 3 lovely kids whose future is also secured.
All these were only possible because the “Yello Brand” gave a helping hand.
I cannot finish my success story without mention of this “Yello Brand”.

Dear MTNC Foundation, you didn’t just help me, you helped a generation.
This might be longer than expected but I can’t hold the excitement I feel each time I share this story of how MTN Foundation restored hopes to my dying dreams.

This is my 2013 version before MTN came to my rescue.

Note: the cheque is a dummy cheque that represents Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba names