FORMER OKADA RIDER TURNED GRADUATE OF UNILAG

This is my story: it would be useful to someone out there; I’m Benson Adima, born in one of the worst slums in Benue State, Nigeria. In fact my mother would say she uses ordinary cassava to wash my clothes as a baby; I was 8 years old before I knew there is anything like school. In my secondary school I use to wake up 5 am go to farm, plant groundnut or harvest cassava before going to school at 9 or 10 am when 2-3 lessons would have be delivered. Am always the last person to pay school fee of four to six hundred naira then, then I don’t know what is goals, dreams and all the likes but one thing, the inner desire for greatness is on and boiling. The day I got admission to University of Lagos, I was like is it me or is a dream. Though I finished my last paper in December 2015, but one thing or the other couldn’t allow me convocation till 9^th May, 2018. But I must say a new obsession possessed my heart as I had a rare opportunity of golden-hand-check with Unilag Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oluwatoyin T. Ogundipe, FAS and Pro-Chancellor of the Institution, Dr Bolanle Olawale Babalaki. 

I wasn’t born with a sliver spoon in my mouth. In fact, I was born with a wooden spoon that I’m still carving ... I know first-hand what poverty is like. I know what it is like to walk five miles to school barefooted. I have what it is like to be homeless and have cried myself to sleep at times because there were insufficient resources to meet an urgent need in my life. I know what it means to soak cassava powder (gari) 3 times a day. I know what humiliation is all about let alone insults.

Furthermore, I was teaching in a school somewhere at Ikeja where I was being pay ten thousand per month for two years… Yet I borrowed seven thousand naira from a colleague to seek admission, when I got to Unilag that day and finished all I needed to do I was left with zero naira. I was planning to trek up to Shangisha/Magodo that night. But a Good Samaritan helped me home from Fadeyi. Fortunately I lost the teaching job few months after the admission, worst still I was homeless staying under the Staircase. Because I don’t want to lose my admission for anything so I struggled with a support of a welfare unit of our Church and raised some hundred thousand naira for my accommodation.

Guess what?

Instead of using the money to rent a house in Shangisha which is expensive, I divided the money in two: Bought Motorcycle (Okada) seventy thousand and use the thirty thousand to pay one year rent at Agege respectively…..that is one of the best decisions I took in life.

 

Listen to this, Life is a journey, everything in it is a process…..

I became Okada Rider/Student Between 2010-2012….it wasn’t easy, having to face, LGA Task-force, LASMA, Nigerian Police etc. It was Williams Shakespeare who wrote “uneasy lies the head that wears the crow”. And the greatest victory is the one that is won the hard way. When I couldn’t cope with the heat of banning Okada in Lagos I sold the bike and join factory work with Honey Well Nigeria and managing night and day shifts with the school was tougher than necessary, yet the motivation to be a graduate is toughest.

2014 met me working on construction sites as carpenter with Mr Wale from Ibadan. Later that year I returned to classroom (Atlas Model Colleage Agege) where I remain till I finished my degree in 2015. Then I realise one thing is certain ‘A little beginning must have a greatest end’.  

But, in spite of it all, I could see God helping me attaining height after height: Today I hold National Diploma in Management (ND) from Olabisi Onabanjo University; B.A (ED) English from University of Lagos, Akoka; I work as Internal Control in a good organization; and as a Motivational Speaker I help youths to achieve their personal and business goals faster by providing them with practical ideas and information that could be use immediately to get better results. This I do through Annual Success Breath Seminar and Social Media Broadcasting I believe nothing will stop a man with a positive mental attitude from attaining his goals. Other people and things can stop you temporarily. You are the only one who can stop yourself permanently. Go for the moon. If you don’t get it, you will be heading for the stars. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Don’t be satisfied with your achievement yet, I believe you can do better.

Time would fail me to tell you that I started life in Lagos as a house boy. Time would not also permit me to tell you more about my humble background and those factors that help me to keep going while the going is tough. But you could keep a date with me on https://successbreath.blogspot.com.ng

Take this from me; you may be born in a slum, don’t allow the slum to be born in you. I have this principle in life as rooted in the words of Zig Ziglar, “If you wait until all the lights are ‘green’ before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top.”