An Atlas is born.

Being born a Nigerian is hard, gut wrenching and almost being ill prepared for life, which many Nigerians will accept as the truth and nothing more. Foreigners and those in the Western world hardly know the extent of what we go through, especially the ordinary and common Nigerians. Life in Nigeria is truly short, nasty and brutish.
      I was born in a family that could be said to be middle class, my father a government worker, my mother a business woman, I was the second child of the family. Lower/primary school was pretty much uneventful, was used to coming top of my class, receiving awards, secondary school/middle and high school too were uneventful, though I was just an average student by then except in few subjects  I was still coming tops in. Finished and got admitted into one of the first and foremost universities in Nigeria, into a course I didn't apply for or had heard about before then, but which I and my family were extremely happy for, knowing the situation of such things in Nigeria, where I spent 4 years and finished with an average result too.
    But these was where life really began for me, lost my father at the very beginning of my sophomore year while preparing to leave for school, mainly due to the bad and ill equipped medical facilities in Nigeria, he died a fairly middle aged man, in as much as life expectancy in Nigeria is nothing to talk about, people die everyday for the most inane reasons and nothing is said or done.
After he was buried a month later, I returned to school and managed to cope, being sponsored alone by my widowed mother, whom also had 3 other children asides me to worry about.
Spent four years doing the least I could in college, fees were paid late, little money on hand, little more left for academic materials, even though that's also the story of many others like me, many whom I came across too and had as friends and acquittances.
Also tried running a few businesses while in college with my elder brother who was there in college too, a year higher than I was. This we both managed to do until finishing to supplement the little money we got from our mother.
Finished college, did the mandatory national youth service thereafter, spending a year in a village in the southern part of the country, although an enjoyable and unforgettable experience, one that influenced my leaving Lagos the commercial capital of Nigeria where my family reside, for a quieter and more easy going location after I got married few years after my service year.
Been 4 years since then, and I've barely made any progress in life, which is hardly peculiar to me but same fact which applies to majorly all Nigerian youths cutting across it's length and breadth.

To be continued.

D.N.A