Eniola Adesina
Recently. Femi Ogunjumelo, a US-based attorney, was at his country home in Igbotako, a community in the Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State, to carry out his annual scholarship award to indigent but brilliant students of the two public secondary schools in the town.
The event, which attracted dignitaries and community leaders of various hues from far and near, was held under the banner of Femi Phillips Ogunjumelo Scholarship Disbursement Awards at Igbotako Community Grammar School(ICGS), the alma mater of the founder of the foundation.
Each of the awardees, totalling 12, drawn from both ICGS and Lubokun Comprehensive High School(LCHS), Igbotako, received a financial support of Fifty Thousand Naira Only each and a certificate underscoring their excellence in academics. The awardees had emerged as the overall best students in the selection tests conducted for students in JSS1 to SS3 by the foundation for the two schools.
The foundation in 2024 awarded the scholarship to only deserving students of ICGS. This year, the founder, Barrister Ogunjumelo, decided to extend the grace to also cover students from LCHS. Henceforth, the quiet philanthropist said awardees will be drawn from the two schools annually, going forward.
To qualify for the annual scholarship award is simple: Just be the overall best in the selection test. You don’t need to know anyone or be connected to those who sit on the board of the scholarship foundation. It’s merit-based and excellence-driven. No two ways about it. No shortcut around it. You have to earn it by dint of your brilliance.
The aim of the award essentially is to provide a leeway for students to study without tears in order to actualise their academic pursuits as financial encumbrance has stifled many from achieving their potential in life, especially in a community where most parents are subsistence farmers surviving on meagre resources. In short, the core essence of the award is best captured in the motto of the foundation, which is “honouring excellence and empowering dreams.”
The altruistic interventions of Barrister Ogunjumelo extend beyond the prism of the educational sector. Health is also a topmost priority in his philanthropic portfolio, given the difficulties associated with accessing healthcare in rural areas. Besides the lack of adequate facilities and requisite manpower, most rural folks also lack the financial wherewithal to seek medical help when they are sick. This explains why Barrister Ogunjumelo is committed to helping as many people as he can to help them access medical care when the need arises.
To mark his mother’s 91st birthday this year, he organised a free medical outreach in conjunction with his wife, Mrs Yetunde Ogunjumelo, a US-trained nurse, with support from Dr Oluseyi Aba and some other medical staff. Those who benefited from the outreach, in their hundreds, mostly elderly people, carried out at the premises of Gospel Faith Mission Assembly 1, Igbotako, attested to the efficacy of the treatments they received for the myriad ailments ravaging them. They also spoke glowingly of the kindness and compassion extended to them by Barrister Ogunjumelo, his wife and the outreach medical team.
Although access to affordable health and education for the majority of his people remains a pivotal crux of Barrister Ogunjumelo’s philanthropic gestures, access to potable water is also a priority for him. In fact, he established a foundation- Waterfronts Foundation- in partnership with his delectable wife some years ago dedicated primarily to providing safe drinking water to rural folks in hard-to-reach areas. The foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, which helps to provide potable water to people in rural communities that lack government-owned public tap systems in Ondo State. At the last count, several households now have constant and running water courtesy of the foundation.
Barrister Ogunjumelo, who is the founding partner of a thriving law firm – MayDay Law, Houston, Texas, with several high-value awards which bear an eloquent testament to his brilliance as a trial attorney in the US, is an impassioned community development advocate and has contributed immensely towards the development of his ancestral community – Igbotako- and other neighbouring towns in the axis via sundry interventions either individually, through his foundations or in conjunction with other community-centric groups like the Pacesetters Club of Osooro, which recently donated two electrophoresis machines to the General Hospitals in Igbotako and Ilutitun, one per hospital, respectively, during the club’s annual social gathering, which he hosted in his palatial country home in Igbotako.
Eniola Adesina is a community development-focused youth advocate
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