Long post !!!

It's 2:30am and strangely, an experience I had with a childhood friend many years back is keeping me awake. I feel writing about it would help others.

We were kids in the same neighbourhood. Deji (Not real name) was a love child from an unwanted teenage pregnancy. As with most similar cases, he ended up with the grandma.

He hawked all manner of things from morning till evening everyday. Constantly abused and assaulted, on daily basis by uncles, aunts and even grandma. It wasn't uncommon to see fresh wounds on his body every new day. Deji wasn't enrolled in school, couldn't read nor write, wore no shoes (As far as I could recall), sometimes wore half torn clothes. The whereabouts of his parents were unknown.

His fate in life seemed to have been sealed from birth.

The only source of joy for Deji was football. He would join the rest of the kids to play football when his guardians were not at home, switching between monitoring his grandma's petty trade and playing.

We all wanted to be footballers. Some adults in the neighbourhood had gone on to be professional footballers, even internationally. One of them played for Lazio. The twist is that Deji sucked at football. To say he was poor at football was an understatement, he was horrible. It seemed hawking was his life mission, perhaps he would have gone on to become a great salesman. But he was terrible at hawking too. He rarely sold anything and he lost money frequently.

He seem doomed in life.

In retrospect, if I was asked who would be the least likely to succeed in life among my childhood friends, he would be the undisputed number one. I'm sure our other childhood friends would have a similar sentiment.

OUR ENCOUNTER

Fast forward over a decade later. I was a 300L student in one of the Universities. One afternoon, a classmate of mine told me someone asked after me but they gave him my hostel and room number. "Okay"

Got to the hostel that evening and I was given the same message. "Someone asked after you". They also didn't get his name.

The next day, in class, I was standing in front of a guy, smiling at me sheepishly. He donned a black suit, nice tie, sharp hair cut and over 6ft tall. He didn't look like a student so I was woondering who he was.

He mentioned my name and told me he heard I was studying at this department. He said he knew that course is what I would study because I've always loved doing stuffs like that from childhood. "Who the hell is this talking about my childhood". I was not going to be fully prepared for the response I got. He introduced himself as Deji my childhood friend and I immediately saw the resemblance. His childhood ordeal in my memory and the image standing in front of me was a "miracle".

He spoke both Yoruba and impeccable English. He was in my University to represent the Univeristy of Ibadan in some inter-school academic competion of some sort. That news gave me goose bumps. How did he get into UI talkless of representing UI?

When my mum and my elder sister met him, without even hearing his story, they started shedding years. I wouldn't get into the details of the unimaginable things he told me pe passed through to where he was.

We parted and I would later hear from him about 5 years later. I was job hunting at the time. He was already immensely successful with his career and living with his son and wife.

THE MORALE

The morale of this long post is that life could impose unfair disadvantages on us sometimes, but it's never an excuse. For one, I think being a Nigerian is an unfair disadvantage. I've seen the other side and compared it. IT IS RELATIVELY MORE DIFFICULT TO SUCCEED IN NIGERIA WITH ANYTHING(perhaps with the exception of fraud). This factor, coupled with some of our individual circumstances put us in a position of comparative disadvantage, sometimes. For example, I was born the same year as Mark Zuckerberg. He founded Facebook at a time when I had never had the opportunity to even operate a computer. He had access to a computer relatively early in life. Today, I'm a successful Software Engineer in my own right, but the journey could have been easier and faster. Seemed an unfair and unbalanced comparison, but it is what it is.

Wherever position of disadvantage or limitation life has imposed on you, may you find the courage to crawl your way out today and be world class at whatever you choose to do in life and I pray you find true success.

Cheers.

Amazing!!! This really got to me honestly

lordally:
Amazing!!! This really got to me honestly

Nice.

This was worth the time… for me and OP.

Where You Get this tale from

Life is not 1 + 1 = 2.
In life it can be 1.5 or 3.

All the west siders in my department during my school days made it very early.,
Life itself is a misery.

Remarkable!

Life is full of twists and turns.
But, keep moving in the right direction... don't stop!

I pray we finally get to the point where we look back and smile

LogicBomb8:
I pray we finally get to the point where we look back and smile

Amen.

Lindner:
Long post !!!

It's 2:30am and strangely, an experience I had with a childhood friend many years back is keeping me awake. I feel writing about it would help others.

We were kids in the same neighbourhood. Deji (Not real name) was a love child from an unwanted teenage pregnancy. As with most similar cases, he ended up with the grandma.

He hawked all manner of things from morning till evening everyday. Constantly abused and assaulted, on daily basis by uncles, aunts and even grandma. It wasn't uncommon to see fresh wounds on his body every new day. Deji wasn't enrolled in school, couldn't read nor write, wore no shoes (As far as I could recall), sometimes wore half torn clothes. The whereabouts of his parents were unknown.

His fate in life seemed to have been sealed from birth.

The only source of joy for Deji was football. He would join the rest of the kids to play football when his guardians were not at home, switching between monitoring his grandma's petty trade and playing.

We all wanted to be footballers. Some adults in the neighbourhood had gone on to be professional footballers, even internationally. One of them played for Lazio. The twist is that Deji sucked at football. To say he was poor at football was an understatement, he was horrible. It seemed hawking was his life mission, perhaps he would have gone on to become a great salesman. But he was terrible at hawking too. He rarely sold anything and he lost money frequently.

He seem doomed in life.

In retrospect, if I was asked who would be the least likely to succeed in life among my childhood friends, he would be the undisputed number one. I'm sure our other childhood friends would have a similar sentiment.

OUR ENCOUNTER

Fast forward over a decade later. I was a 300L student in one of the Universities. One afternoon, a classmate of mine told me someone asked after me but they gave him my hostel and room number. "Okay"

Got to the hostel that evening and I was given the same message. "Someone asked after you". They also didn't get his name.

The next day, in class, I was standing in front of a guy, smiling at me sheepishly. He donned a black suit, nice tie, sharp hair cut and over 6ft tall. He didn't look like a student so I was woondering who he was.

He mentioned my name and told me he heard I was studying at this department. He said he knew that course is what I would study because I've always loved doing stuffs like that from childhood. "Who the hell is this talking about my childhood". I was not going to be fully prepared for the response I got. He introduced himself as Deji my childhood friend and I immediately saw the resemblance. His childhood ordeal in my memory and the image standing in front of me was a "miracle".

He spoke both Yoruba and impeccable English. He was in my University to represent the Univeristy of Ibadan in some inter-school academic competion of some sort. That news gave me goose bumps. How did he get into UI talkless of representing UI?

When my mum and my elder sister met him, without even hearing his story, they started shedding years. I wouldn't get into the details of the unimaginable things he told me pe passed through to where he was.

We parted and I would later hear from him about 5 years later. I was job hunting at the time. He was already immensely successful with his career and living with his son and wife.

THE MORALE

The morale of this long post is that life could impose unfair disadvantages on us sometimes, but it's never an excuse. For one, I think being a Nigerian is an unfair disadvantage. I've seen the other side and compared it. IT IS RELATIVELY MORE DIFFICULT TO SUCCEED IN NIGERIA WITH ANYTHING(perhaps with the exception of fraud). This factor, coupled with some of our individual circumstances put us in a position of comparative disadvantage, sometimes. For example, I was born the same year as Mark Zuckerberg. He founded Facebook at a time when I had never had the opportunity to even operate a computer. He had access to a computer relatively early in life. Today, I'm a successful Software Engineer in my own right, but the journey could have been easier and faster. Seemed an unfair and unbalanced comparison, but it is what it is.

Wherever position of disadvantage or limitation life has imposed on you, may you find the courage to crawl your way out today and be world class at whatever you choose to do in life and I pray you find true success.

Cheers.

Is this a true story or just fiction?

Why not give us details of what he did to get to where he is. The story seems rather far fetched!

UjuJoan2:


Is this a true story or just fiction?

Why not give us details of what he did to get to where he is. The story seems rather far fetched!

Fiction ke?

This is a real life experience. If you don't believe it, there's nothing I can do about it. It's your choice.

But whether you believe it or not, the morale is the most important part.