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I have come across many people who have nothing but excuses about how their lives isn’t moving in the right direction. Sometimes I believe it’s because they haven’t tried hard enough but at other times, I feel they are not willing to step out of their comfort zone.
My name is Ngozi Ukezie and I’m 32 years old. I’m the fourth child in a family of six children. My dad was banker while my mother was a teacher, both disciplinarians. My dad was the kind of man that would measure yams and despite is tight work schedule, he was always going to the store to inspect the foodstuffs. Food wastage was a crime. Rather than discard leftovers, we were advised to refrigerate the food no matter how little it was and consume before we were dished another but we touted this order. We not only discarded the leftovers but we also gave out to our friends who were in need of some and this angered my father.
‘‘I always insist on preparing the exact measurement of garri you can consume,’ my dad barked one of the days he caught my elder brother dumping garri inside the bin. “Some people don’t have food to eat and here you are wasting it because you are opportune to see it. I’ll teach you all a lesson someday.’’ He kept to his promise at the end of the third term when he tricked us into going to the village only to abandon us there for five weeks with his elder sister to make garri and palm oil. Some of it he sold but a few made its way to our house. The stress of going to the farm every morning, harvesting cassavas and frying days later was huge not to talk of the long hours spent making palm oil. He taught us some lessons and we learnt it very well. This was not the only lesson he told us, there were many others. There was the curfew hours of 6pm and if you were in minutes later, we would meet a locked gate and would have to explain why you returned later than expected. We are thought to be super careful with our belongings as well. You were to turn in all the textbooks you used in a class to get new books for the next class so you younger ones would use them and failure to do so meant that you won’t be given new textbooks and woe betide you if you scored below in that subject. That was not all, we were also served physical punishments. I can never forget the day I was made to stand from night till the following morning because I couldn’t turn in a particular textbook I used in the previous class. We called that day, the judgment day and it was a dreaded day. Although my siblings and I never liked these rules, we could not dismiss the fact that it helped shape us into the persons we are today.
I had the best childhood ever because I enjoyed a lot of luxuries. I attended the best schools and was chauffeur driven. Although my parents never gave us money during our primary and secondary school days with exceptions for those that were in boarding schools, we always go what we needed. A slight headache and we were rushed to the hospital because the bank took care of all our birds. We were having the best times of our lives until my dad visited me in secondary school one day.
I always looked forward to visiting because of the goodies that came with it. I get lots of provisions, good food and pocket money but on this fateful day just a year to my graduation from secondary, my father visited and broke the news of his retirement. I was shocked and for about ten minutes, I couldn’t utter a word. My dad always complained that he does not have money when he was a bank manager and I wondered what would be our fate now he would have to rely only on his pension to take care of a battalion of a family that ours is. I also thought about this promise to train me to any level and in any school in the world that I so desired as long as I could get the admission by merit. He wasn’t the type of man that would bribe or beg to get anything and he imbibed that in us as well.
‘‘Did you hear what I said?,’’ my dad asked. ‘‘I said I have retired from the bank. They wanted me to say but since I was due for retirement, I decided to resign,’’ he said beaming with smiles.
I wanted to frown and probably question him for making such decision without discussing it with us all but when I saw the smile on his face, only I could say was, ‘Congratulation, Dad. I’m proud of you.’ He looked at me and smiled. I could tell that was what he wanted to hear but I was worried how we would survive. My eldest brother was in the university, my two elder siblings were out of secondary and waiting to get into the university while I and my younger siblings were still in secondary school. The way he beamed with smiles one would think he had enough money stashed somewhere but when it was time for University, we had it tough. I and my siblings had to do little businesses while in school to get by because the money we got from home wasn’t enough. We had learnt earlier how to manage so that wasn’t much of a problem.
My stay in the university wasn’t easy but I forgot all that when I emerged with the best result from my department. My dad had earlier advised us to strive to graduate with the kind of result that would make jobs hunt us and not the other way round. After my Youth service, I thought I would be retained since I put in my best and received huge commendations from the organisation but how wrong I was. They kept on telling me to call them until I got fed up. I tried securing a job but that I didn’t get the kind of jobs I saw in my dreams. While I settled for jobs that paid me peanuts, I also tried to secure better jobs but when I learnt that most of the jobs had their head offices in Lagos state, I decided to storm the city. I discussed that with my dad but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said Lagos was no place for young ladies to live and he told me to perish the thought of going there but I kept nursing it until it came to pass.
I had finished serving my dad dinner about two months after the Lagos discussion when an idea settle in my head. I knew the only way to leave for Lagos was to lie and that I did. I told my dad that one of the reputable Oil and gas companies invited me for an interview in Lagos but I declined the offer because I knew he wouldn’t approve of it. He asked for an evidence and I showed him one. To my greatest surprise, he not only allowed me to go to Lagos, he also secured a place for me to stay.
‘‘Just pray you are posted her when you get the job else you are not taking it,’’ he said the day I was leaving for Lagos but he never knew I had so much up my sleeves.
I arrived in Lagos and had to stay with the laziest set of couple I have ever met in my life. The man, a proud Abeokuta man had no job and he told me he had never worked since he graduated finished his youth service in 1992 because he does not want to work for anyone. His wife, a tailor who sewed from home and hardly gets customers but she had a staff he paid every month. I called the man, ‘Brother’ and the woman, ‘sister’. While they prayed that God would grant me favour in the interview during the morning devotion, I prayed for favour as I go around Lagos to hunt for a job. When I returned that day, I told my hosts that I was told me to come back for the next stage of the interview the following week and that bought me more time. I also tried to warm my way into their heart. I not only cooked with my money but I also lent them money when they requested for a loan which they found difficult repaying. When my dad summoned me home a week later, the couple convinced him it was better for me to stay and wait for the next leg of the interview than to travel home and be back for the interview few days later but when the job wasn’t coming, my father began mounting pressure again. He argued it was not safe for a young and idle lady to stay in a place like Lagos.
To get him off my back, I look up a customer service job in one of the hospitals in Lagos but he told me to quit and come home. Few months later and more pressures from home, I quit the job but when they thought I was coming home, I took up another job with an insurance company as a marketer. This new job not only infuriated my dad but he found it amusing as well because the job was commission-based. He told me siblings that he could not understand why I was bent on staying away from home but the truth was that I was tired of sitting a home and eating free food. Although I found it challenging feeding the couple, I saw it as a training but after doing this for one year without saving a substantial amount of money, I decided to move out of the house. The commission was not regular because most of my clients didn’t pay their premiums as at when due but when my commission grew, I told the couple I was going back home. I moved out of their house and moved into a room apartment in Lagos. I also enrolled for my master’s degree to enhance my chances of getting a better job. That period was the toughest period of my life as I struggled to pay my fees, rent and meet other needs. It was difficult and I could not forget the days I drank garri and ran away when I saw my landlord because I owed him rent but I knew this period would not last forever. I worked very hard and it paid off. I concluded my master’s degree and secured a lecturing job in the school while I enrolled for my PhD in the same University. Now, I married and I have an adorable son. Looking back, I wouldn’t say I have reached my destination but I’m certainly far from where I had started and I know I would have not gotten this far if I didn’t step out of my comfort zone.
