A Nigerian orphan named Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir has emerged the best graduating medical student at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan in yet another accolade to the country.

The Cable quotes her as telling the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in a telephone interview from Sudan that not just her academic achievements but also her life in general is a massive miracle since her father died when she was around three years old and her mother when she was six years old.

“My academic achievements so far, till today, seem like a miracle to me. Not only that, my life as a whole is a pack of miracles,” she said. With no hope of going further in her education after her mother’s death, Abdulkadir was saved by helper called Alhaja Sekinat Adekola.

“Thinking that was the end of schooling for me, my grandmother withdrew me from the school but the founder, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, gave me scholarship for my primary and secondary education. 

“I emerged best student in my primary and secondary schools and even in my WASC, and I had a high score of 274 in my UTME examination. “I have always had passion to be a medical doctor, but because I was not sure of my chances I filled Bio-Chemistry in my JAMB form and came out with a high score of 274.

Meet Asnath Mahapa. She has become the first black woman to drive an airplane in South Africa. It’s a real victory for gender and race equality for this country. However, the path there was not easy for Asnath.

In the childhood, she used to stare at the sky and see those huge planes crossing it. One day she realized a small person could drive a giant aircraft. Why could not that be her?

She became very determined to become a pilot, but fulfilling the dream was almost impossible in the country being a black woman.

Against the will of her father Asnath left her school and entered the flight courses. She was the only woman in the class. She had to work the hardest among the new pilots to finish it. Many times she felt extremely sick in the air. But she did not give up and in 1998 she became the first black female pilot in South Africa.



She was only 22 back then. 14 years later she has opened a flight college for women. She had enough experience to make the path a lot easier for her sisters, the girls with the dream of the sky. Here is what she says:

“The boys must accept that the girls can become anything they want, and girls must believe in themselves that they can become anything they want.”

“Gender equality” are not just words for her. She worked hard to make a dream come true and inspires others to do so, too.