A Short "Must Read" True Life Story

I’M AFRAID TO DIE POOR

I woke up one morning and noticed things aren’t the way I wanted it to be. I had only 235 naira left in the pocket of the trouser I wore yesterday. I am from a poor family and things aren’t so good to me. Did I just said Poor? No. I’m from a Very Poor Family. We are so poor that a church mouse would have pity on us and sacrifice himself for our next dinner. My mum sells Fufu by the road side and my Dad works in a mortuary as a mortuary attendant before he passed away a year before I secured admission into Tertiary institution.
My mum has been the only one sponsoring and supporting me, to the possibile extent she can. Money was one of our greatest challenge. No Family Support, No Good Samaritan,No heaven sent helper, No Nothing! We were just on our own. I remember my mum telling me that “God didn’t create us to be rich”. I always get mad at her, anytime she spits out those words. It feels that a burning wood was in my heart, which I don’t know when it would stop burning. Like the popular saying “Money can’t buy happiness”. You can say that to the rich! My family was poor and Our Poverty couldn’t buy happiness, There wasn't a moment of happiness in my family. We jump from one problem to another. Settlement of house rent, Buying of School’s Textbooks, Food, Clothings, Paying Creditors, Transport fare. We never give offering in church instead we get jealous of pastors who will be the Manager of that money in the long run, or maybe short run. Everybody is a hustler.
I went to primary and secondary school with lots of difficulties, even though I was one of the best in the class then, and now by God's grace, I’m in the Tertiary Institution now and things are still very though. My ability to perform well academically started to reduce without me seeing traces. I sometimes sleep without eating throughout the whole day. I have always wanted to be a Great Man, someone who could change the world, but my environment already discouraged and demoralized me. I will become a waste after my Tertiary Institution since I’m not even having good grades in school. I have deferred two sessions because my parent couldn’t afford my school fees those years. I have been rushed to the school medical Centre severally because I haven’t been eating well resulting to Ulcer. My classmates who we matriculated and started 100 level together are two Sessions ahead of me and my grades are not even encouraging. The thought of dropping out of school always flashes my mind with a conclusion that I will end up like my father, who died without any legacy. No one is ready to help but I couldn’t help myself also.
I was still on the hostel’s wooden chair where I do sleep in a friend’s room who is harboring me when all these thoughts flashed through my mind. I begin to see how poor people are being differentiated from the rich folks. How you have to get acquainted to a big and popular person in the community, to become relevant. How poverty has destroyed the thinking faculty of an educated man. How lots of goals and dreams of young ones have been wasted. How people don’t want to get associated with me, knowing fully well that I have nothing to offer. I am hopeless. It’s like my mother’s words were really going to come true. I was afraid I was going to die poor. We don’t have anything and should I still say “I’m a criminal for saying I have nothing because I literally don’t have anything”. I am less important and no one will even care about me. Committing Suicide won’t affect anyone, maybe only my family, but I couldn’t because I wanted to see the end of my life and maybe because I may give my mother another problem of buying a coffin for my funeral. I could remember the old woods that were nailed together to make coffin for my dad when he died since we couldn’t afford to buy one. The coffin was so weak that just a dozen of eggs in it will make it break. I couldn’t see any trace of bright future in me. Everything is dark and dusky. I wish I have super-powers so I could change the way things were but I have nothing to do.
I will die a poor man. I will continue to beg. I will have no one to call a friend. I will leave this world without a legacy. I will continue to get irrelevant in this world. I have no life, so no one will believe me. I will become a dead man who couldn’t fight for his future. I am so young and nothing seem bright at the end of the tunnel. I’m I even in a tunnel? Then I don’t know about it since I obviously couldn’t afford to buy one. I am a waste. I have nothing in me. Nothing to show to the world to make me important.
But there was still something inside me that wanted to change these things. Something that could make the world a better place for me, Something to help me achieve my goals. But I couldn’t see it.
Poor People are the most stupid people I have ever known. We hate each other. I guess we caused this Poverty for each other.
Why will a Gate-man who seems to be poor hinder a visitor who is also poor from seeing his boss to get money from him? We don’t even like one another, so who will want to help us? I guess we are just poor and we are meant to be poor for life.
“Ade, Stand up. The porters are coming oooo” This was the voice of my roommate. I always run out of his room to hide anytime these porters are checking rooms to see if there were squatters, so that I won’t be sanctioned by the school authorities. Where a rich man’s dog live is better than where I sleep as I will just fold myself to contain a wooden incomplete chair beside the window in the hostel. I felt I was less human, maybe a robot programmed to be very poor. Some people have over 50 houses, while some live under the bridge, some have fleets of cars, while some can't afford to pay for their transport fare. Why is life like this? Is there anything more than hell? Hell is a better place to live than this life.
But look at me, I will continue to live my life in poverty. Nothing has changed and nothing may seem to change even though I just said the truth about what is killing me. I have to continue in this wicked world and see if my mother’s words won’t come to pass.
I hope I don’t DIE a POOR MAN.

Thanks.
ADE BANKO

Written by Adu Wesley Young.