Everything went dark,
Cold sweat ran down my face,
Goose pimples as big as grapes,
Teeth won't stop chattering;
But moons before,
I knew no lack,
Meat and drink,
And a warm bed;
Plunged into daily hunger,
Worms threatened to down tools
Faculty refused to coordinate,
Vision played hide and seek;
Hands became detached,
Use of language elusive
Answers refused to come,
And failure became imminent;
Thus began the many travails,
Up the avenue of starvation,
Drawing down stored up resources,
Inching toward scrawny days;
Yes, failure did come,
That semester was dreary,
Cold nights did not help,
Hunger defeated me;
When help came,
All hope had expired,
But just,
And it was sweet, very sweet.
There's no middle-class in Nigeria, so when individuals find themselves at the wrong end of the spectrum, then, only the grace of the gods could sort them out.
So when I found myself in university at the mercy of goodwill, everything seemed to fall apart for me until my father received his first pay after over seventeen months of unpaid pensions by the Nigerian government. He gave me five thousand naira that day and told me how he slept on cardboard boxes, under a bridge until he was attended to by the military pension board in 2005. My father is no longer with us but he rekindled hope in me that year. And I made him proud by receiving a worthy bachelor's degree in science. STRONG.