In 2012, I wandering through Facebook and I stumbled upon a girl’s profile. Her name was Sofiat. Curiously, I read through few of her posts then sent her a friend request with a message attached. She accepted and we began to chat. It began with introductions. I told her I was a jobless graduate and she told me she had finished secondary school just the year before and that she was working in a gas-refill shop, trying to save enough money to write UTME.
From our chats, I deduced that she had passed WAEC exams at her first sitting and because she her intelligence was glaring, I had hope that she’d pass her UTME and make it into the university so it did not bother me at all. When she wrote UTME in 2013, she passed but at the post-UTME, she couldn’t make the cut-off for the course she always wanted – Economics.
Not long after, she left the gas shop and began to work as an attendant in a fairly large shop where she’d stand all day from 9am – 10pm attending to customers, no shift nothing. The only free day she had was Sunday and it was when we had time to talk.
It was on one of those Sundays that she told me she was the first child and that she had lost her dad some years before. Her mom was a petty trader who made barely enough to survive and get by. She told me about their family and how everyone seemed to be struggling to survive.
This was why she had to work all year in order to be able to support her mom and to buy her UTME form. Always, when we talked, she would talk about how someday she’d be a graduate too, just like me.
In 2014, she wrote the UTME and Post-UTME. She passed but there was no money to pay the acceptance fee. I was still a jobless graduate and I couldn’t help either. She continued working as a shop attendant under harsh conditions. In 2015, she wrote UTME and Post UTME again. She passed but once again, there was no money to pay. This time, her boss gave her some money.
Just about this time, her mother’s business was affected by
the Lagos State Government’s road expansion and there was no form of
compensation and this troubled her mom who no longer had a means of income.
Sofiat was discouraged and was going to let it pass. When she told me, I encouraged her to not give up and I gave her my word that we would go through the journey together. She added all that was left of her savings and paid. Acceptance fee was gone, now school fees. I had no means of income but I had a few friends I could talk to so I did. We raised some cash, and luckily, someone gave her some money too so she paid her fees. All of this time, we had never seen each other before.
I remember when she told me she was finally going to school, I had mixed feelings. She was finally getting on the journey to her dreams – that excited me. She was going to school with nothing – no place to stay, no pocket money – that troubled me. I emptied my bank account and sent what I had to her, along with my prayers.
II
Sofiat found a friend in school and squatted with her. The living condition was far from comfortable but it was all she had. Whenever I had money I sent. Whenever she was broke and couldn’t bear it anymore, she’d reach out. I’d disturb my friends, shake them up and send whatever falls from them.
In 2016, I finally got a job but the pay was measly. Still, whatever I could scrape, I did and my friend, Monsur, always rose to the occasion.
One evening, she sent a message that her mom had been kicked out of their apartment because she could no longer pay the rent. It was terrible because the woman had no place to go and their things had been thrown out in the rain. I told her there was nothing I could do neither was there anything she could. I reminded her that she could choose to be down by the news from home or muster her strength, face her education and make it through.
In 2017, I had my first leave at work and so I decided to spend it in Ilorin. Five years of constant communication and 2017 the first time we set eyes on each other. It began as a beautiful meeting until a phone call interrupted. When she picked the call, spoke for a few seconds and screamed, I knew there was trouble.
She picked her bag and dashed out of the house. She said she had to go to Lagos right away. I gave her some money and wished her journey mercies. It was in the night that she called me, crying. Her mother had taken ill. She had a stroke and she was almost completely paralyzed.
Her mother’s illness hit her. She stayed with her for a while but had to return to school when school resumed. There was a family member who was taking care of the woman but not after she returned to Ilorin, the woman called her to abandon her studies and come back to Lagos to take care of her mother. Her younger sibling had run away from home and had gone incommunicado. It became a serious war, family members calling and demanding as of right that she forfeit her education and return home. She refused. In the next academic year, her grades tanked!
We met again in 2018, a year and a month after we first met.
She was in despair and it was important to gear her up and cheer her on. The journey all through was a very rough one for both of us. There were times when I took loans and sent to her while I paid back in instalments. There were times I sent my last card because I was worried how one could survive with no pocket money in school.
III.
2019. 400 level.
The toughest. School fees. Pocket money. The last pay I got with respect to work was June. This was about the same time when Sofiat began work in earnest with her thesis and she needed money to administer questionnaire, pay for analysis etc. and me, I was broke. Damn broke. With the little I could raise, she began. Some of the things were done on credit (and still yet to be paid).
Last week, Sofiat sent me a screenshot with a text “I am a fucking graduate!”
I had just survived a hit-and-run accident and I was in so much pain but oh what joy, the message! I looked at the screenshot (attached to this post), she graduated with a Second Class Upper and I laughed so hard till I began to cry.
My heart was chuffed with gratitude that we came this far only by faith.
To walk through the valley of the shadow of all sorts of ugly, bear deep bruises and yet have your head held high with a crown on it; that’s a miracle.
This is my testimony.
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The University of Ilorin convocation fee is N25,800. She has an outstanding N10,000 to pay for data analysis (and other attending matters). Finally, Alumni fees – N2,500. We would appreciate any help to foot this bill and know that this testimony is signed, sealed and delivered.
