NIPIAN Fellow freely Trained over 1000 University Students during COVID-19 Lockdown

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown clearly created hurdles to teaching, learning, and research. Schools were closed, and students and instructors who had not been prepared for the sudden outbreak were left to figure out how to use the extra time they had. While some students were eager to study, there were no online lectures available due to a lack of suitable digital tools to support online teaching and learning. According to Harsha and Thara (2020), higher education suffered greatly during the COVID-19 lockdown since students and lecturers were unable to fully utilize online resources due to a variety of issues.

Nigerian Information Professionals Innovation Ambassadors Network (NIPIAN) fellow, Dr. Ayodele John Alonge's insatiable desire to aid humanity pushed him to consider how he could assist young people during the COVID-19-imposed confinement. He examined the negative consequences that student inactivity could have. Youths may participate in risky behaviors as a result of their curiosity and readiness to try new things. On a daily basis, several incidents of adolescent delinquency are reported, and they are on the rise, especially during this pandemic. The NIPIAN Fellow, who is also a LIS lecturer at the University of Ibadan, develops measures to mitigate the effects of the lockdown based on this concept. Note: NIPIAN is an initiative of US Consulate General Lagos, Goethe Insitut, and the University of Abuja /

Several donors generously gave large sums of money during the pandemic, and we should be grateful for their generosity and social responsibility to humanity. Dr. Alonge, who is also a fellow Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), may not have as much as they do, but we must give what we have at this time. Intellectual properties could also help ensure that one idle young person is occupied while another is prevented from trying out the results of idleness-induced evil thoughts. Alonge considered the most effective way to occupy the minds of these young people with smart blood, which is quick to propel any act, reasonable or unreasonable.

The initiator, Dr. Alonge,  was clearly thinking of Africa, not simply Nigeria. Using his worldwide contacts, he contacted people all throughout Africa for advice on how to best assist students. Telegram, powerful platform  and with its excellent features was used with Yiutube for video display. Volunteer Facilitators from all around Africa were approached. These individuals are well-known lecturers from various African countries who were prepared to educate for free. The intervention  focused on a specific discipline: Library and Information Science. A platform known as ChecheSkyBoard was created on Telegram and immediately the link was made public, it was like a dry land soaking water in dry season. Students started informing one another and before we could spell Jack, students were into thousands, covering 100 levels to 400 levels and postgraduate students.  In total we have 1,317 student in enrolment 

The beautiful thing about the classes is that students are appreciative and the iaoct of the intervention. This has also proven to us that youths in Africa are not lazy, they only need focused leadership and enabling environment. We do not offer our facilitators money to buy data, it has been by sheer love for humanity and passion for knowledge sharing.

LEVEL	NUMBER OF STUDENTS	5% SELECTED AS SAMPLE
100 LEVEL	313	16
200 LEVEL	252	13
300 LEVEL	413	21
400/500 LEVELS	172	9
POSTGRADUATE	186	9
TOTAL	1336	68

The initiator appreciate our volunteers:  Sola Owolabi of Landmark Univerity who served at the registrar of the noble initiative and the facilitators  Dr James A. Aiyebelehin, Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria; Dr Opeyemi Soyemi of Babcocckcok University, Nigeria; David Okhaku and Azeez Adeoye of Lead City University, Ibadan Nigeria; Idris Dauda and Ibrahim Yusuf of Ahmadu Bello University, ZariaNigeria; David Adepoju of African Leadership University, Rwanda; Ify Evangel Obim, University of Nigeria, Nszukka UNN, Ify Evangel Obim, Oluseyi Josephs of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun,Nigeria; Olugbenga Oke of Ty Tihyauni Difur of University of Jos, Nigeria; and Abel M'Kulama of the University of Zambia.