Let me tell you a little bit of my many stories. 

May 9, 1994 is a day I will never forget, it remains the darkest moment of my life. I was just four years old then and I woke up that day to see people crying in our compound. What had happened? I didn’t know what it was until I saw my mummy’s lifeless body being brought into the partially completed building we were living in then. Mummy died that day and it was like everything was over; our world collapsed unexpectedly. My dad had died earlier, so death taking my mum away again was like God decided to punish us for reasons we never knew about.

Being the second to the last born, I was abandoned with our last born Gbemisola, as family members came around to pick the matured ones among us. Sister Morenike was just 19 years old then, but she refused to follow the person that came for her, she dropped out of school and started working to provide money for my grandma who was taking care of us then.

Grandma wouldn’t live long, she couldn’t get over my mum death and soon, she too passed away. Sister Morenike came back, she took me and my little sister who was a year old then and took us to Akure.  She was 20 by then. She became my mother and that of my little sister. She put us in a lesson class, which was where I received my first education since she could not afford money to put us in a regular school. She told us that even though she may never attend school again, that we would and that she would do whatever she could to make sure that we were both educated.

Lovely sister Morenike, even though I was 5 years then, I can still remember how you worked in a food canteen washing plates and many times you always brought your food for us to eat.

After some months in the canteen, you raised money and ventured into hawking small white beans that was common then, just to sustain us. From there, you moved to hawking Maggi (when you discovered that you could make more money with it), to feed us. You hawked from morning till night, so as to have money to buy akara and garri which was our best food then.

You later moved to Oja-Oba to sell Okra and pepper and I had to join you at the age of 7 to start hawking and it was in the market under you that I learnt most of the things I know about business today. I can remember how the rains always beat us in the market and how we always cried together anytime our sales proceeds got stolen.

You sacrificed everything for me and today, I am a better person, at least I am now a graduate and not an okra seller as many of my mates who are still in Oja-Oba. I am shedding tears already, so I have to stop here.

Thank so much for beating me anytime you discovered I didn’t go to school. The only homework assignment you could only do for me while I was in primary school was my Yoruba course. I am grateful to you for being my teacher.

Aunty “Meeke” was what I shortened your name Morenike into, and I was always calling your name incessantly all day long. I cannot thank you enough. You became illiterate so that I could be educated, you became poor so that I could be rich. You sacrificed everything for me. I owe you so much, even God knows that.

Join me and celebrate his great heroine of my success – Mrs. Morenike Babalola and call her on this number 08140186935 on my behalf to thank her for me. I am not telling this story for comments or for likes. I don’t need sympathy, I have overcome everything already, even though some of the pains have refused to go away but I know there are a lot people out there that are going through turbulent moments like I had gone through and perhaps, my story can ignite their hope.

God doesn’t punish us with the situations of our lives, he only prepares us for the future with them. If I can I do it, yes, you can too, every child deserves quality education. I am who I am today because I had access to quality education.

With the Sera Schools Initiative as a platform, I will do all I can to make sure every child in Nigeria has access to quality education. Watch out for the whole story in my Autobiography coming out soon. I am now a graduate from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, and not just as a student but as NUASA President and ACCA Student Ambassador. Share this story to give hope to someone else. It is my story…I am still far from the end.

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