What I Make of Problems

By Ogiri John Ogiri

I've come face to face with real challenges before. There were times in the past that I had worried about food to eat and clothes to wear. I've gone to bed without food before. 

I've taken risks before and I still take.  I travelled out of Benue State in 2003 to Kaduna State knowing no one really except a friend whose address I had to find later. He squatted me. I'm still grateful to him even in death. I went with nothing, started life with nothing but left with something. 

In my first year as a student in Kaduna State, I had just one pair of shoes, two pairs of worn-out trousers and three t-shirts. It got so bad at a time, that a friend, overpowered by pity for me, bought me a t-shirt which I wore to support the few ones I had.

I've had to contend with the challenge of where to live before. As a student, I've been sent out of the class before for not being able to pay my tuition fee. A close friend and course mate had to lend me some money with which I was able to pay before being allowed in to the hall.

As a student, I've had accommodation problems too. Once, I've returned from the village to school and met my mattress and other personal effects of mine outside where I had rented a room before. They were thrown out without a prior notice. I cried when I resumed school but had no place to stay but I had to be a man. I had to work at night while studying during the day. I've worked as a gate boy at the Kaduna Club  as well as Safety Line Communication Ltd, along UTC, Kaduna before. 

Three times in my life, enamoured with God's protection, I've cheated death. I've come face to face with death and won. The most striking experience that I still remember with a nostalgic phobia was an accident in which I was involved while serving in Gombe State a few years ago. As a corp member in Gombe State, I was knocked down by a long articulated vehicle from a bike I had boarded on my way to take a home lesson somewhere within the metropolis. The "okada boy" had entered the road without notice. Unfortunately for us, the long articulated vehicle had already beaten traffic and was headed our way and then it happened. While the rider was flung on to a nearby pavement by the pedestrian walkway, I fell onto the road and the trailer had to roll over me while I was under. Overpowered by a near fatal shock, I experienced a tunnel vision, blacked out and literarily passed out as breath made a futile attempt to elude me  but by a kind intervention of Providence, I was saved because the last two merciless tyres that would've crushed my tiny frame was held back by an automatic but miraculous breaking system applied by the already agitated driver. By the time I opened my eyes and looked from where I laid still in between the two back tyres of the truck, I saw a concerned crowd of people already wearing mournful looks with many saying " Ya mutu" a hausa word for " he is dead" for they had all concluded I was dead.  The driver of the vehicle had already alighted and was seated on the ground thinking of how to salvage himself from the potential anger of the by-standers in the event that I died. He was already weeping profusely by the time I crawled out. Even the traffic warden on duty wasn't spared the agony of bewilderment at the sight of what had happened to me. He stood there with his hands helplessly placed on his head wondering if I survived, for, as I learnt from them later, it took real miracle for anyone to survive that kind of an accident. But I did. I made my family a promise. I told them I was going for a national youth service programme and promised to be back. I had to fulfill that promise at the end of my service year. God indeed made me come back to them. 

I crawled out of the dungeon beaming with a sheepish grin betrayed by the obvious pain I was trying to hide. I was rushed to the hospital where cuts on my legs and hands were stitched, my wounds were nursed and bruises dressed. I was saved from disability. At the end of it all, I survived. 

After NYSC programme, I was brought face to face with yet another challenge of finding a job. I moved to Lagos State. I looked for jobs, I got no stable one. Then I got involved in home lessons. I joined meticulous Tutors. I was assigned to take lessons at Lekki Phase 1, Ketu, Maryland, Gbagada, Osborne and Dolphin Estates in Ikoyi. I have trekked from Obalende to Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki before. 

Then I moved to Abuja. I started a job but had to quit. In order not to go hungry, I dropped my certificates, started going to construction sites with friends. I would mix concrete, serve them in a head pan for 10 hours after which I would earn #1,500 to#2,000 per day. I had to drop my pride since it wouldn't help in paying my bills. I can go on and on. 

But, in all these, I succeeded in re-creating a different me using my long periods of tortuous experience. I converted my challenges into a ladder on which I climbed while heading to the top. I still do. I'm not there yet but I've made tremendous progress over what I had achieved many years ago.

This is how I see problems. Today, as always, I see, in the most hopeless situation, a panoply of opportunities for investments. For me, a problem is a repository of undiscovered wealth. Reason I don't fret in the face of highly problematic challenges. My creative ingenuity is provoked into action whenever nature is generous enough to present me with a seemingly intractable challenge. I live with the conviction that as long as I can, with diligent patience devoid of self-inflicted complacency, provide sustainable solutions to these opportunities disguised as challenges, camouflaged as problems , I can breakthrough into a new invigorating world of pure wealth.

This is the conviction that I live with everyday. 

What about you? What do you make of your problems?

©Ogiri John Ogiri.

Culled from "The Cost of Doing Nothing in the Face of Challenges" unpublished by Ogiri John Ogiri.