I want to use this medium to thank everyone who honoured this invitation. I must say that I’m the happiest person in the world right now. I’m happy that you’re here today to s are in the joy with me," Mr. Obiefuna Okonkwo said.

He continued,
On September 8th, 2008, I broke the news to my parents. it made the whole family feel uneasy, my father called his relatives to see if anything could be done to change the current situation but no positive response from any of them.

My mother's mood and tone has never been the same since I broke the news to them. she was worried that her only child, the only product of her marriage will be leaving her soon to a place that she feels is not safe.

She couldn't sleep properly throughout the night. The thought of the news troubled her a lot and I could read through her mind as she sat at one corner of the sitting room.






Time started to move faster from the day I saw this news because today came too quickly, I muttered to myself as I was putting few of my cloths in my travelling bag. I took my little luggage to the park with the assistance of Uncle Emeka, to board a bus to Awka from Ekwulobia, to meet up with Tunde.

Tunde is my Yoruba friend that I met while in school but he is based in Anambra state with his parents. His phone call was like an encouragement to me, when I found out that he’ll be going to Kano with me, I finally have someone that will be heading to the same location as myself.


Tunde and I found our way to Onitsha from Awka around 8am. Onitsha is like 12hours 45 minutes away from Kano state, so all things being equal, we were supposed to be there around 10pm but unfortunately for us, because of bad road network and traffic jams, we got there at 11 pm.

That should be my longest journey ever as of then, but I enjoyed it. The two men seated at the back talked loudly about the last presidential election that brought President Umaru Musa Yar'adua into power. I couldn’t keep my ears off the conversation as one of them was in support of the president and the other was against his policies.

They talked about his proposed Government of National unity of which he wants to give personal appointment to opposition parties that joins this trend. I was enjoying the argument until sleep took me to no man's land.

We became stranded that night. we needed to find a way to our destination as we got to the final bus stop but every means we tried proved abortive. The roads were just lonely and we found it very difficult to communicate with the few people we met on that lonely path.



One of them gave us a listening ear and we thought that our Messiah is here, we were very happy that at last, we found someone who can understand the English language but not until he nodded his head afterward and left while weaving a sign that meant he couldn’t hear us.


The thought of going back to the park where the bus dropped us came to our mind, at least to pass the night there, but then a young man was approaching our way, he was putting on a Fulani native attire with a Fulani cap. My father will always say that night and darkness are no man's friend and having this at the back of my mind always gave me a bit of fright.


This thought made me drag Tunde backward when he wanted to approach him for assistance, he insisted but I whispered in his ear " Night and darkness are not our friend please be careful ", our actions and rather suspicious movements caught the attention of this young man as he turned and asked with an Hausa accent "What's the problem?" He can speak English fluently,I surprisingly muttered to Tunde.





This gave us little courage to tell him that we are lost, that we needed to find our way to the NYSC orientation camp at Karaye. He shouted NYSC? We replied Yes. I’m a prospective corp member here in Kano, I’ll be reporting to the Karaye camp tomorrow, the young man replied, I’m just coming from the cyber cafe where I printed my call up letter which I have been trying to print since morning but the site was not accessible till now, he showed us his call up letter and introduced himself as Musa.


He offered to allow us pass the night at his place and go together to the karaye camp in the morning. We accepted this offer though we were still scared, I was still happy that someone came to our aid.


This was how Tunde(The Yoruba man), Musa(The Hausa man), and I(The Igbo man) became friends even after the NYSC camp at Karaye. I was retained at my place of primary assignment, at the international institute of tropical Agriculture where I work till today.







A place my parents and relatives thought wasn’t safe, is the place that I’m making my living, it’s the place I met the love of my life, Aisha. And today everyone is here to celebrate with me as I walked down the aisle with her. Our love won’t just be between us but it will extend to our tribes (Igbo and Hausa) and even Yoruba because the handsome man standing beside me as my best man is Mr. Tunde, and this will serve as a symbol of the togetherness of Nigeria.





Nigeria yesterday was about Me, Musa and Tunde, Nigeria today is about Me and Aisha, my lovely Wife, and Nigeria tomorrow will be about our children. Together we will make Nigeria strong again.
God bless Nigeria!