My defining moment.

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I was born into a loving family. My father was very passionate about the growth and development of his family. I can remember that my brother and I attended the best private nursery and primary school in town. Government owned schools otherwise known as public schools had been systematically destroyed prior to our growing up to school age. Though parents of the same economic status as my parent enrolled their wards in the cheaper public schools, my father made sure he suspended every other plan like building house or buying a car to concentrate on sponsoring us to the best school available.

However, it wasn't easy. Some times, we were sent home for owing school fees, he would follow us to plead with the management to exercise patience a little for him to source for the fund. He would always tell us that knowledge through formal education and riches prevent many insults.

I know what I have faced since my childhood to this moment. I don't want you to face even a percent of it. I wish to equip you with what you need to avoid insults from the society we live in.

Though I was a brilliant child while growing up, I wasn't a type that put efforts into anything I do. To be candid, I wasn't taken my father's statement serious. Something happened along the line that changed my perspective and made me understood my father's statement. I was 15 years old when my maternal grandmother died and I was taken to my grandfather to stay with him so that I could run errands for him.

My grandfather was staying in a farm settlement. I was schooling in a town about 4 km away. I would go to the town on Sunday evening and returned to farm on Friday evening for the weekend. My uncle who was traumatized from losing his mother relocated immediately from the town to a city and left his room for me to live in. One could hardly find a child of my age staying alone then but the situations around me made me to stay alone without the control of anyone during the weekdays. This freedom nearly consumed me and jeopardized all my father's efforts to make me a better person in future. There weren't phone services in Nigeria then and my father could hardly monitor my activities.

I took bad advantage of this freedom to make bad friends. I was initiated into absconding from school to join them in doing some jobs in Motor parks - jobs like calling passengers for a vehicle loading or following the bus to move around in order to help the driver call passengers into the bus. This kind of work in Nigeria is accompanied with excessive drinking of alcohol and smoking and my case wasn't different. It was recently that I quit smoking - the last of such bad habits I was initiated into - after 17 years. I became unserious with my education. I forgot my father's statement entirely. Each Friday I go to the farm, my grandfather would welcome his grandson, a supposed student.

My life was going in the opposite direction to what my father wished for me.

The event that changed my life happened on a particular Monday. I joined three of my friends to go and work on a farm instead of going to school. We did this a lot and whatever cash we got from such work was for drinking and smoking. I was the youngest and in an effort not to be discriminated against when sharing the money, I doubled my efforts to work at about the same rate with the older friends.

Few hours into the work, the daughter of our employer brought food for us. The food was pounded yam and vegetable soup with unusual sizes of chevon. I was surprised when I saw the meat.

When did laborers begin to be treated so kindly? I imagined.

We finished the work and returned home in the evening.
We went to our employer later in the evening for our money.

After sharing the money, I got 250 naira and I later used 150 naira out of it to treat myself when I was down with body pains as a result of overstressing myself to work with my friends at the same rate earlier. On our way back home from the man's house after getting the money, we met a friend of ours staying around the same area and we stopped to greet him. One discussion led to the other and I told him how his neighbor cooked for us with a lot of meat. He was silent for a while before telling us that he hoped that the man didn't use his goat that died of sickness to cook for us. On further probing, he explained to us how the man's goat died a day before and he overheard the man instructing his son to go and dispose of the dead goat for the fear of how unsafe it was to eat but surprisingly seeing the same goat being roasted a few hours later. It was the meat that was used to cook for us.

I was angry and we confronted the man. He confessed and apologized after reporting him to the traditional ruler of the town. We accepted his apology and moved on but I sat and reflected on everything my father told me. Money avoids many insults. It was then that I realized that if I continued with my wayward life, I would end up becoming useless to myself, my parents and the society and I must be ready to encounter many of such insults later in life.

This experience changed me totally. I went back to school to face my studies and 13 years later, I got my Bachelors Degree and I am working in the Federal Civil Service presently. Education prevents many insults, now I understand.

I have discovered that parent's vision and mission statement for their children have a lot to do with how the children take life seriously. Also, children shouldn't be left independent at a tender age. They are easily manipulated.