Story By Precious Whyte
Right from when I was 9 years old, I had made up my mind never to be poor, having seen how my parents had suffered to train us.
My Elder sister, Hannatu was forced into early marriage to Alhaji Ayuba, a popular car dealer in Gusua, Zamfara State as the fourth wife, just to elevate the family’s poverty.
Hannatu was just sixteen when she was given out in marriage which automatically halted her education, making her stop school in SSS 1.
Unfortunately, her marriage never brought the desired proceed to the family. The intention my parents had was to get Hannatu into marriage in order to help train me and my siblings in school but all to no avail.
Without doubt, I’ve always known that I am a bright child, but no help from anywhere to train me in school.
When I was fifteen, I have to drop from school to pick up a menial job just to assist my family. I was taken to Lagos by my father’s friend who buys and sells cola nut. He buys in bulk from the north to sell in Lagos. He engaged me as one of his truck boys.
We follow the truck from Katsina to Lagos to help load and offload. The risk of the job was in our numerous night journeys where we had to narrowly escape death severally from armed robbers’ attacks and accidents.
Even though I was the youngest among Alhaji Danladi’s truck boys, I was hard working and dedicated to work. I rarely complain about work knowing where I came from.
Visit pobsonline.com for more amazing stories and search for Pobsonline on Google Play store or click here to download our Android App
My weekly returns mean a lot to my family so I dare not joke with work. After working with Alh Danladi for three years, I opened a savings account and began to save a token into the account. After two years I had saved N350,000. By this time I was already twenty years old yet to complete my secondary school education.
I told my dad of my plan to go back to school, but the idea did not go well with him considering the amount I remit every week to assist the family. I enrolled for extra moral classes to prepare me for WAEC, but I hardly had time to attend, due to my job. For obvious reasons, living my job wasn’t an option.
I sat for WAEC and NECO simultaneously. I managed to have four credits in my Neco and three in my WAEC. With my results I applied for admission into School of Basic and Remedial Studies, A branch of Ahmadu Bello University.
After the remedial course I was offered admission to study Accounting. It was really a hard time schooling without help. My time on campus was characterized with hunger and self denial. My suffering on campus became minimal when I meet Jocelyn.
Jocelyn was the daughter of former Kaduna State Deputy Governor. She lived in affluence and hardly attend lectures. I became her school boy..
Tbc
