A lady, Ngozi Andrew, has gone online to share her success story after she bagged a first-class degree in Linguistics and communication studies from University of Porthacourt (Uniport) after dropping out at SS1.
Ngozi, Today I'm going to tell you a deep, dark secret about myself. I was a high school dropout. Only my immediate family knows this about me, but I didn't finish secondary school.
I dropped out at SS1 which is equivalent to grade 10 in the American Education System. My father died early, leaving only my mum to take care of 8 of us. Out of these 8 children, 2 were seriously sick and had to go in and out of the emergency room at regular intervals.
The burden was just too heavy for one woman so I had to put my education on hold and get a job. This decision was doubly devastating for me because I was a straight A student and had such lofty dreams for my future. I wanted to be an international lawyer.
Ngozi left the village for Lagos to take up work as a house maid, for a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who lived in Ikeja.
My job was to take care of the their 3 children. Within a month of my stay with them, they sacked their children's lesson teacher and I took over.
"In their words, I was better than the teacher so why pay when I can do it. Apart from my regular duties and lesson teaching, I also work as office assistant in his home office, during the weekends.
I thought that, with all the extra work I was doing, they would enrol me in a secondary school but they never did even though I begged them on several occasions. When I think of it now, I wonder if I wasn't doing as good a job as I thought I was doing for them or maybe I wasn't asking the right way.
I kept my dream of getting more education alive by reading. I read everything in the lawyer's office, from the Nigerian law review to the complete works of Shakespeare and he graciously indulged me then I left them and went to work for a lady who was a manager in UBA at the time.
I negotiated with her to work without salary but she has to enrol me in an evening school so I can finish my secondary education. I was never enrolled and neither did I get paid.
Fast forward to 2010, after several menial jobs, I finally saved enough and registered for GCE myself and cleared my papers.
In 2013 I did jamb and Post UME. My name was number 13 on Uniport's merit list that year. By the time I got into University, I was hugging 30 and I was in a class of fresh brained 19 and 20 year olds.
But I was determined to put in my very best and I came out with a first Class. I decided to tell this story, not because that certificate made my life perfect but to encourage someone who might be on the verge of abandoning their dream.
As we prepare to welcome 2022, hold on tightly to your dreams. If you can conceive it, then the strength you need to achieve it is already planted deep within you. Hold on tightly to those dreams, let the winds buffett and the waves roar, don't let go.
Even when you come to what looks like a dead end, Don't abandon the journey, just look for an alternative route, there is always one at the next corner.