My life as a leader

My life as a leader

By Sinneh T. Moijueh, Freetown, Sierra Leone

At the start of 2019, just after completing my ACCA studies towards the end of 2018, I enrolled into the Masters in Professional Accountancy program provided by the University of London (in partnership with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the UK), with academic direction by University College London. It was a one-year program available to ACCA Members and professional-level ACCA students around the world.

Funding for the course came from my personal savings and cost me thousands of pounds.

The program was for one year, with very rigorous examinations conducted by University College London (ranked 8th in the world by the QS World University rankings - https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2020).

When I read about the various performance classifications in the program, my eyes were set on the ultimate, which was the DISTINCTION landmark. I however knew this was not going to come easy, with assessments from the 8th best university on the planet, so I knew I had to sacrifice a lot to earn it.

With a full time job that requires an average of 9 hours per working day, an NGO (The Perfect Guide for Mankind) running on the side, a social media audience to maintain, and family and other social commitments, I knew I had to squeeze water out of stone to make it happen. With the pressures arising from these various directions, I had to squeeze in a few hours every evening after work and much longer hours on weekends, thunderously dashing through the course materials and preparing for examinations. This obviously meant inadequate time was given to other areas, creating some gaps and pressures but with only 24 hours in a day and to achieve such a feat, the gaps and pressures were the inevitable prices I had to pay to secure DISTINCTION grades.

I honestly needed some more hours after the 24 but because this was apparently impossible, I had to frequently sleep for fewer hours to be able to create some more time for my studies. I sat down for very long hours especially during examinations but the longest time I endured, preparing for two of the examinations, was 21 hours, one of them starting from 3:00pm on a Sunday up to 12:00pm on Monday (the following day). This was a record study time in my academic journey, having only maxed up to 16 hours during my ACCA studies.

These sacrifices actually gave early payoffs as I was consistently exceeding the distinction landmark and was highly respected among my cohort for scoring some of the best marks. Exceeding the distinction landmark by 5 to 10 marks in all examinations was done and dusted when our final grades were released in March 2020. It was not a surprise to finish with DISTINCTION overall, given my past grades but I was still extremely happy and fulfilled. However, a big surprise was actually underway. In August 2020, I received an email from the board of examiners at the university stating that I was one of the best performers in my MSc studies and for that they gave me an award and a cash price of £100. This was clearly one of the biggest moments in my academic journey - receiving an international award was extremely fulfilling, seeing all the hard work taking me to a realm I never anticipated. I give all the glory to God alone!

I networked with a lot of students and made a lot of good friends in various countries, especially in African countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia etc. I was able to have a sense of some of the racial issues going on around the world, especially during my interactions with students outside the African continent. It was however a great platform to appreciate cultural diversity.

I strongly believe that success is about becoming somebody of value and that is the mindset we at the Perfect Guide for Mankind (PGM) are preaching, as we tirelessly work on changing the mindsets of Africans. As a leader of this movement, I ought to live by the very highest standards of someone that is a typical example of “making it through genuine means only!”. I stand against any form of success that has a negative impact on society and its people, it severely burns my heart, and for that shall I continue to add value to myself, to be a better and better example to inspire other africans as I continue to get more and more, but at God’s desired time and magnitude, and even if not as much as it is supposed to be, to be content and be happy with the very little God will provide, and make good use of it for my daily survival, till the day I will meet my maker to report to him on my assignment on earth.