ALL FOR NOTHING

Written by Ayodawha Ejaeta Victory

PROLOGUE…

If money were to grow on trees, would it have made the world a better place? Would it have made life better? Will it have reduced armed robbery, prostitution and ritual killings? It’s the truth that the love of money is the root of all evil but why didn’t they also tell us that the lack of money is the seed of all evil?
In a world of over seven billion people there is this desire to be rich, to be relevant and to be on top. But the big question is why are some people rich and others poor when infact everyone craves to be wealthy? Where could it have gone wrong?

“This is my story, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon but I was ready to make one for myself. I don’t know the path to take but I’m ready to do anything, I mean anything to be rich especially for the sake of my poor and widowed mother”…

This is the story I intend to tell the young students I’ll be speaking to during my lecture and I’m hoping it makes a difference even if it’s just in the life of one person…

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ALL FOR NOTHING

By Ejaeta Victor

Episode one

If there was something special about me as a young boy, it was the fact that I was extra ordinarily intelligent. As against what I was taught in Biology that intelligence was hereditary, I could say mine was a special gift. My late father of blessed memory was not intelligent considering the fact that he only attended a primary school and couldn’t further his studies. As for mama, she didn’t even visit the four walls of a school so I couldn’t say I inherited my intelligence from either of them.
As a young boy, I believed intelligence was synonymous with one’s ability to solve difficult math problems, balance complex organic and inorganic reactions, write good essays and speak English very fluently. Anything outside that to me meant dullness.
I would be turning 16 in three months time and was in SS2. I was this dark skinned fellow, with a height that complimented my age and I was slim too but not thin. If not for one thing I could have passed in for a model because I was really handsome.
I was the brightest student at Achievers high school and I was looking forward to graduating with the best result ever recorded in the history of the school. I wanted to be the first student to have nine A’s in the final exams and I had the confidence that I could do it. The best graduating student ever recorded in Achievers high school was Kunle who had seven A’s and two B’s. Everyone called him a genius!
Learning about his achievements, I decided to equal him to the task and if possible surpass him. He was the only student to have maintained first position right from JSS1 to SS3 until I came in and was already doing thesame thing. He was also the first student to win the trophy at the science competition both as a Junior student and a senior student-A feat I was also on my way to achieve. I had won the trophy too as a Junior student and was looking forward to winning it too as a senior student. On graduation, Kunle won the awards for being the best student in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Further mathematics scoring 90’s and above in all subjects. That was also a feat I wanted to attain. Everyone believed in my intellectual prowess especially my mother whom I called “mama”. She so much believed that my intelligence would make a way for me to excel in the real world and to become rich someday so that I could give her a good life. The kind of life papa could not give to her before he died. She never ceased to encourage me to study to become great.
In school teachers believed I was a replica of Kunle and hence they referred to me as “Kunle the second.” I didn’t like the idea of being the “second” hence I decided to set a record that Kunle didn’t and couldn’t set. However, it appeared Kunle had set all the records already except having A’s in all his paper in his final exams and that I wanted to get to prove that I could be better than Kunle. Though I was in SS2, I was already preparing rigorously for the final exams in SS3. I wanted to get nine A’s and I was willing to pay the price. I spent most of my time in the school’s library reading ahead of my teachers. I had already covered my third term’s work in SS2 even if we were just mid way into the term. To me, I believed anything less than 90% was not to be regarded as first position. Just like Kunle, I made sure I scored nothing less than 90% as an average in my terminal results. Even if I was trying to equal Kunle, I saw him as a source of inspiration to me. It convinced me to believe that the very best proof to show that something can be done is in the fact that someone else has already done it before hence I saw my self being able to achieve all that Kunle had ever achieved at Achievers high school.
The only difference between myself and Kunle was that he was from a rich family and both his parents were highly educated. To him, I could say his brilliance was hereditary.

We had just returned to school after the mid term exams and were waiting for the results to start coming in so we could know how to prepare very well for the end of term exams. Unlike other schools in town, Achievers high school was well know to be a school for the elite. It was founded by a white man from Germany who came to settle in Nigeria. I heard he came to Nigeria to pay the bride price of the girl he got married to. Mr Robert Klosc as he was called left Germany to marry a Nigerian lady who had the privilege to study overseas. Though they were officially wedded overseas, the girl still demanded that they did it in her own Nigerian cultural way.
Two years after the marriage, he founded the school and with the help of some notable government officials, the school became the seat and bank of unparalleled knowledge producing great scholars of which I wanted to be one of them. The only school that was competing with us in the whole of Utti district was the pillars of Knowledge demonstration school. They’ve been the only school to win the trophy twice whereas we have won it over six times since the inception of the competition.
If I could win the trophy this time around, I’ll be the ambassador of modern day science and a cash prize would be awarded to me thesame way it was done for Kunle. After the promotion exams I would be representing my school and I knew everyone was looking up to me.
If Achievers high school was a school for the elite then how did I find my way there considering the fact that I came from a very humble background and the likes of me couldn’t be found in such an expensive school. My ingenuity as a scholar paved way for me. I won a scholarship that gave me the privilege to study in such an expensive school. When mama heard of the scholarship, she had 100% confidence in me that I could win it if I took the exams hence she did everything within her power to make sure I secured a spot for the entrance exams into Achievers high school. It wasn’t easy but mama was able to raise the money selling the few valuables she had just to be able to make sure I took the exams. Our neighbors at that time thought that mama was just wasting her time and that I wouldn’t be able to get the scholarship. They even said mama was biting more than she could chew because they knew very well that Achievers high school was the most expensive school in Utti district and even if their fee was divided into five parts, mama still wouldn’t be able to afford it but what they didn’t know was that mama had faith in God and in me and she was confident that I could get the scholarship.
“I know if there is only one student to be awarded the scholarship then that student will definitely be you.” Mama would say.
In an effort to make mama proud and to prove our neighbors wrong, I decided to study like my life depended on it. As God would have his way, I not only won the scholarship, I scored 99% a feat that had never been achieved before not even by Kunle the great scholar and Achiever. I registered my name automatically in the school’s list of great scholars and Achievers and it was left for me to either maintain it or play with it. With that result I had the confidence that I could set better records than any student in the history of Achievers high School. I was determined to set a record that would remain long after I’ve left the school. Mama was very proud of me and she never ceased to educate me on the importance of studying. Her lesson guide was 2nd Timothy 2:15 and without having to look into my bible, I was able to memorize it.
Mama attended the Anglican Church in Utti district and she always made me go to church with her. Even when I didn’t feel like going, mama would always find a way to make me attend church. She so much believed in the Bible that I sometimes wonder if it was the fact that she was so religious that we were poor because my other classmates had parents who didn’t attend church as mama did but were living in affluence.
Sometimes people wondered why I called my mother mama especially in a modern world where kids called Mom and Dad. If you were to see my mother you’ll know that she was nothing less than a grandma to me and this was due to the fact that she birthed me at an old age coupled with the hard life we were living. Mama spent so much of her time in the farm and the only day I could help her in the farm was on Saturdays.
Just like I was told by mama, I was born fifteen eighteen years after her marriage to papa. Mama told me she birthed me at the age of 45 after getting married at the age of 27. She told me how terrible it was for her to see women who came into marriage after her giving birth to dozens of children as if they had a factory full of them. Mama also told me that there was no prayer house in the whole of Utti district that she didn’t attend. Mama’s fear increased when her in-laws threatened to send her packing from Papa’s house and bring another wife for papa. Papa’s family members never really liked mama especially uncle Kayode who opposed the marriage vehemently from the very onset. Papa’s love for mama prevailed but after the marriage, the search for a baby became a problem. When uncle Kayode advised papa to get another wife and he refused, he vowed never to have anything to do with papa ever again.
Papa tried to explain to uncle Kayode that he was a lay reader in the Anglican Church and could not do such a thing. Besides he loved mama too much to do something like that and that it was God that gave children not man. When all advises to get papa another wife failed to yield any result, his brother left him to his fate.
Mama also told me that my birth brought her so much joy than she had ever experienced since she was born. Hence she gave me the name “Ayomide” which means “My Joy has arrived” but too bad papa didn’t live to see his little son grow up to become the great scholar he had always dreamt of having. Mama believed I was her joy and the only reason she was still living. She believed that one day I’ll be rich and will be able the give her the kind of life that papa could not give her before his death..

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