I did not know that the world around me could make a bad situation worse. As the saying goes, a child who has never suffered knows little about what suffering feels like. This does not mean that a child must suffer; rather, difficult experiences can add to one's understanding of life, and even without suffering, a child can still gain valuable experience.
Though it was seventeen years ago that this significant event took place, I can still see the difference between then and now.
The world around me has grown and developed, becoming more sophisticated in many ways. Yet, the lessons from that journey remain fresh in my mind.
At the time, I was a young boy working to support myself. I had a dream of furthering my education, but I had no one to sponsor me. I therefore saved little by little from the money I earned until I had enough to register for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination.
Unfortunately, I registered late and was posted to Benin Kebbi, far from where I lived. A colleague at work, Wilson, tried to discourage me.
“You should forget about this journey,” he said. “Benin Kebbi is too far. You don't know what you may encounter on the road.”
“I know it is far,” I replied, “but I want to see what is beyond where I am. I have already registered, and I am going.” I concluded, and he succumbed.
Because of my adventurous nature, I took a week's leave from work and began the journey.
When we reached Lokoja, our bus was stuck on the road because of a traffic situation, and it became frightening when we eventually had to spend the night on the road in the middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, the network was poor, so contacting anyone was almost impossible.
After we escaped the hold-up, we continued towards Abuja, and before we got there, another bus driver coming from the opposite direction warned our driver.
“Don't go further! There is a robbery operation at the next corner,” he shouted.
Our driver immediately reversed and parked as everyone started praying in any way they could. We waited for about forty-five minutes before continuing.
I eventually arrived in Abuja at about 5 a.m and slept at the garage until 7 a.m., then continued my journey in a vehicle heading to Benin Kebbi. The journey lasted the whole day as the car was at top speed, and still the road became longer and longer, as if we were traveling to another world, and I thought the struggle was over when I arrived at about 8 p.m.
At the examination centre, I found other male students outside the school gate. The school was a girls' school, so they had nowhere to sleep.
“Let us go to the police station,” I suggested. “At least we should be safe there.”
However, the police officers chased us away.
“We cannot take strangers in,” one officer said. “There is too much insecurity in this state.”
“But we have our identity cards,” one of the students protested.
“It doesn't matter. Please leave.”
We had no choice but to sleep in the market, but before we settled down, two villagers walked past us, speaking in their native language, and after they left, one of the students who understood the language looked terrified.
“They said the police would come and raid this place tonight and arrest us as criminals,” he said.
Nobody waited to find out whether the information was true. We all ran back to the examination centre and slept outside the school gate.
The following morning, I wrote my examination and felt relieved. I wanted to celebrate with a meal, but when I reached for my money, I discovered that it had been stolen.
“What am I going to do now?” I asked myself.
With the little money remaining, I bought pap and bean cake as there was no nearby ATM, so I begged a man who had brought his daughter for the examination to help me.
He agreed.
“I am going to Akure,” he said. “I can drop you at Ibadan,” he concluded, and I couldn't contain my joy.
“Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.” I replied and entered the man’s car with his daughter.
During the journey, I spoke with her and discovered that she had also arrived the previous night, but unlike us, she had slept in a nearby hotel.
When we reached Ibadan, I received a phone call, and it was from my workplace.
“Your contract has been terminated,” I was told. “Wilson informed us that you said you hated the job.”
I was speechless.
I had travelled far to pursue my dream, survived robbery threats, slept outside, lost my money, and finally found a way home, but only to discover that my job had been taken away because of what someone else had said.
My experience began badly, but the world around me made it even worse. I had gone from one difficult situation into another, just like from the frying pan to the fire. Yet, that journey opened my eyes to an important truth: sometimes, our circumstances are not made difficult by one problem alone. The people around us, the places we find ourselves, and the decisions of others can either make a difficult situation better or turn it into something far worse.
