I decided to put down my story believing that someone will learn from me and take steps to better their lives.

This story is particularly meant for brilliant chaps who are desirous of getting education up to university level but who have no body to help them actualize their dream.

This is true life story and represents events that happened from 1993 when I finished secondary school.

I am dereformer, and this is my story.

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I love reading inspiring stories.

I completed my primary school education in 1987. In December of that year, arrangements were completed for me to go and learn a trade in Lagos. I was to follow a man I don't even know to Lagos to learn buying and selling.

As providence would have it, my late father's ( I lost my dad 2 weeks after I was registered in school, so my mother told me) sister heard about the arrangement for me to move to lagos and she resisted it.

I must say, that God blessed me with academic intelligence, I was very brilliant in school and every pupils including teachers knew me.

I remembered in 1985 when a teacher had to pay my school fees because my mother who is a pretty trader couldn't afford #15 to pay.

In January 1987, my aunty visited us from Abakaliki then in Anambra state and insisted on taking me with her. This was to ensure I did not go travel to Lagos to learn any trade. She promised to put me in school.

My mother was very happy when my aunty mentioned that she will enrol me in a secondary school. I was happy too.

We left for Abakaliki a on 6th January 1988. My first journey outside umuahia, then in Imo state.

My aunty was a member of Asemblies of God church and one of her members has a private school and was very close to the family.

Due to the friendship between my aunty and proprietor's family, I was granted a partial scholarship. While other students were paying #64 at that time I was asked to pay #32. And this was what I kept paying throughout my six years study even after school fees were reviewed upwards severely.

Thus, my journey to have secondary education commenced.

I must say that somehow something I never new kept reminding me of the type of family I came from. I am always reminded that i came from a very poor background. Not by anybody, but something inside me.
Maybe because I no longer have the kind of freedom I am used to while I was with my mother.

I was determined to set the pace in my new school just like I did in my primary school. By the grace of God, I did.

From jss1 to ss3 no body saw my back in school. I was exceptionally good in mathematics, a subject that was later to become my meal ticket.

My aunty was a poor woman, but very hard working. I learnt so much from her. It was from her I learnt that a rejected person does not reject himself.
She made me understand that the kind of friends I keep can make or mar me in life. This was her every day lesson topic to me.

She was very happy at my exploits in school. Before long, six years was over. I have completed secondary school not knowing who to fall back on for university education.

My GCE result was the talk of my school and even my church. I aced it even beyond my expectation. A record that no one has broken from 1993 to this day in that school.

My school immediately gave me employment to teach mathematics. I accepted and my salary was #600 per month. My first salary ever in life. That was towards the end of 1993.

In 1994/1995, I wrote jamb and my result was good enough to get me accountancy in UNN. There was nobody to sponsor me. I lost the admission that year.

I cried. I promised myself that come what may, I must be a university graduate. I became determined to make money and more money.

Don't forget that I was still teaching in my school, I decided to seek for employment in some of the extra-mural lessons classes. These classes hold in the evenings from 3.30pm to 6.30pm everyday.

I got engaged by two different academy to teach mathematics for students preparing for WAEC, GCE, NECO and JAMB. One academy had me mondays and Tuesdays, the other had me Thursdays and fridays.

At that time, the pay was #60 per period. I was making money.

Before long, I became very famous among students in o'level mathematics. I was a reference point for any o'level mathematical problems. Some teachers will challenge me by giving students difficult problems for me to solve.

I spent a greater part of my time reading the subject, all in a bid to ensure I am updated.

In 1995 another school engaged me to teach mathematics. The salary was #900, that is #300 above what I was receiving from my school. I readily accepted the offer, but this was not to come without some backlash from my school.

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What next?

My former school felt very bad when I resigned. The principal/proprietor called me in his office and wanted to know why I decided to leave. He reminded me of the partial scholarship and the relationship between my family and his.

Three major reasons accounted for my decision to leave the school. One, I wanted to save as much money for my school as possible. Two, the new school is about 15 minutes trekking from my place of residence. Three, the new school has more students and salaries are paid promptly.

I was not going to allow sentiment deter me from my objective. I told the principal that I was not leaving because he treated me badly but because of the proximity of the new school to my house.

I left. Immediately I opened an account with Union Bank plc. The first account I ever operated. I was prepared to save.

Don't forget that all these while, i never allowed any girl to come in between me and my objective. I had no girl friend.

I had a Male friend whose circumstance was exactly like mine. The only difference is he was living with his indigent parents and i was living with my aunty. He was doing menial jobs like loading and unloading, clearing bushes for people during farming season. Just anything that will bring money.

In early 1996, I applied to be engaged in an adult school that runs from 6.00pm to 9.00pm very close to where I live. I was employed to teach the senior class on wednesdays and fridays from 7.30pm to 9.00pm

I was making money gradually. Not long, I stopped touching my main salary, ie the monthly #900.

In one of the academies I was teaching then, where i was making #60 per period of lesson, I went into an agreement with the organisers to run what they called mathematics clinic on Saturdays in the morning from 9am to 12noon. The proceeds were to be shared into 2. 50% for me and 50% for them. That was the arrangement that gave me more money than any of the jobs I was doing then

One sunday in 1996, after church service, I met one man, one of our church members. He is an educated man, and I have always wanted to be like him.

I told him I came to seek his advice. I explained my predicaments to him and I wanted to know how #8000 will take me through 4 years in a university. Don't forget that I have already spent 3 years at home from 1993 to 1996.

Thank God I met that man. After talking to him, he gave me an advice that was later to be the best I have ever received till this day. He gave me an advice that saw me through higher institution to read the course of my choice the following year. Without that advice, who knows, I wouldn't have been a graduate as at the time I graduated and time was running past me in term of age.

Please continue..

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Dereformer come naa.
I followed u from Aussie student thread.

Don't keep us waiting.

.....

Bike Oya drop me here

You just motivate the spirit in me.
This is the same predicament am passing through.
One day, I shall share my story too.