ASUU has finally ended their fight with the government and has decided to resume work. If you’re a Nigerian student, they’re dragging you back to school and this quiz knows how you feel about that.
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Open Letter to Nigerian Parents: It’s Okay to Fail
Dear Nigerian Parents,
I want to tell you an unfamiliar story. One that may seem foreign to the rhetoric you’ve pushed onto us for ages. It’s a story of imperfection, the never-ending struggle we were raised into, the constant reminder that we need to break free from the belief that it’s our duty to rise above it all and “succeed”. We even coined a name for this process, “hustle”. We adore it, worship it, and it defines every day of our lives. And if we don’t play this game and pass, we’ve failed.
Well, here’s a radical idea. Maybe it’s okay to fail. Because you’ve failed too.
You failed to see the flaw in making us live this way in the first place. In making us believe our worth was only in the things we were able to achieve, that our grades are all that matter, and that our value is conditional. We don’t hate you, but it’s not fair. Especially when you must have failed at some point in your life too. But you’re here.
That carryover is not what’s going to end my life. Getting a C instead of an A is not the end of the world. I need you to see that I try. I hope you know not everyone can get an A. The fact that I failed once in school doesn’t mean I always will. It also doesn’t mean I’ll fail at life. But above all, I hope you know that even if I do, I’ll try again. Because it’s okay to fail.
And I’m not alone in this, The educational system itself has failed me. Locking me out of an education for eight months. The country itself has failed, putting its citizens into worse living conditions year after year. We’ve all failed in some way. But we’re still here. The mere truth of that means we have the chance to make it better, as long as we keep trying.
In all, I hope you don’t fail to get the message of this story, that it’s okay to fail. As long as I don’t stay on the ground.
I’ll keep trying my hardest.
💌,
Nigerian Students
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Is This What You People Were Eating in Boarding School?
I didn’t go to a boarding house for secondary school, so I have no idea what the eating situation there is like. But I’m constantly hearing stories about terrible school food and the weirdest combinations students are made to eat.
I’ve been intrigued about this for the longest time. Today, I finally decided to ask young Nigerians about the most bizarre things they ate in boarding school. Their answers will terrify you.
“We mixed egusi soup and beans because we were late for lunch”
— Emeka*,19
On this particular day, eba and egusi soup was served for lunch. Unfortunately, my friends and I couldn’t make it to the lunch room on time, and all the eba had finished. We collected the soup, and some girl in the lunch room said she had leftover beans from breakfast. Because hunger was killing us, we took it and mixed it with the egusi. We created a space in the middle of the beans and poured the soup, and that’s how we ate it. The soup was so watery, some ate it like beans and garri. They’d take one spoon of beans, then drink the egusi.
Another time, we had Jollof garri. This was made by cooking raw garri, palm oil, crayfish, onions and pepper, in a pot with no water. I still eat it to this day. The only problem is the severe constipation you’ll face much later.
“I drank garri with sardine inside”
— Abiola*, 21
School food always tasted terrible, and we would do anything not to eat it. This meant we had to rely on our provisions whenever we were hungry. Once our provisions and money for snacks finished, we had to come up with ways to combine foods so we won’t die of starvation.
A lot of the weird things we ate revolved around eba. There was “ebansa”:eba and sardine, “ebange”: eba and geisha and “ebanspice”: eba with Maggi, salt, pepper and a little water. But it all started with “ebanketch”, which is eba and ketchup.
I remember a time we stole scent leaves from someone’s farm, washed and cut it, put it in a plate of water, and added salt, Maggi and pepper. We ate it with eba. When the eba finished, we ate the rest of the “soup” with Cabin biscuit. We spent the rest of the day going back and forth to the toilet. It was epic.
We also tried beans and pineapple, bread and palm oil, boiled egg with pepper, salt and Maggi. Sometimes, I drank garri with sardine inside.
ALSO READ: 9 Life Hacks From Boarding House That Helped Us Survive in Nigeria
“We ate termites and raw corn”
— Ogochukwu*, 21
Termites were a special delicacy for students in my boarding school.
We’d catch them by putting bowls of water underneath the lights they were swarming around, before going for prep at 7 p.m. When we came back at 10 p.m., there would be a lot of termites in the bowl. For the next two hours, we would sit and stick long broomsticks through them and wrap in newspapers. In the morning, after breakfast, we’d head to the kitchen and roast them over coal, garnished with salt and pepper. We ate the termites while drinking garri.
We also ate raw corn. My school was a federal government college, so there were many farms owned by staff and people who rented land around it. We were prohibited from going to the farms, but we always snuck in to steal corn. We’d try to roast it at night over the coal iron in our room, but the smell always spread immediately, so we couldn’t roast for more than five minutes. This meant we always ended up eating it raw, but the corn was very milky and juicy, so we didn’t mind. I’m sure this contributed to my appendicitis a few months after graduating.
“Fasting made me eat eba and beans”
— Fatimah*, 20
During Ramadan, we ate beans and eba for Iftar in the evening. Due to the fasting, we had to combine our afternoon meal(beans) and evening meal (eba and soup). It actually tasted nice. There was also this meal called “fetch”, which was basically eba mixed with sardine or geisha. We ate it like eba and soup. It was very disgusting, but we ate it almost every weekend because we had no choice; the school food was awful.
“We made our sandwiches with groundnut, milo and milk”
— Ismaila*,23
On Sundays, our school served us bread, butter, Milo and milk for breakfast. And my friends would make a sandwich out of all the ingredients, including Milo and milk, then add sardine. Jollof rice with boiled eggs and fruits was served for lunch one particular day. I’d kept my breakfast till after lunch because I wanted to add the boiled eggs and groundnuts to my sandwich. So it became a sardine, butter, milk, Milo, groundnut and boiled egg sandwich. I loved it.
ALSO READ: 10 Nigerians Talk About Traumatic Experiences They Faced In Boarding School
“We created our own cereal by mixing cornflakes, garri and sardine”
— Itohan, 21
We mixed cornflakes with garri, sardine and pepper. It was a delicacy we ate once in a while, usually on Saturdays. Some of my roommates would do just garri or cornflakes, but I liked to do both. And it had to be Nasco because it tasted better than any other cereal. Everything about the combination was elite; the crunch, the flavour, the pepper… they mixed well to make such a delicious meal. I still eat it at home once in a while.
“One of the best things we had was Milo candy”
— Kai, 22
Back in school, we mixed ground cabin biscuits with butter, milk and sugar. If we had money, we’d also add chocolates. It tasted amazing, much better than school food. We also did this thing where we’d put Milo in sheets of paper and place it under our mattresses for at least a day. The next day, it would be really hard like candy. We loved it so much because we didn’t have access to candy or anything sweet in our school, except when people’s parents visited. We also mixed Tasty Time and Nutri C to make soda during hostel parties. It tasted great back then, but it’s not something I’d drink now.
ALSO READ: Ranked! Boarding House Meals
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QUIZ: Forget About a Future in Tech if You Get Less Than 10/15 on This Intro-Tech Quiz
Whether it was Introductory Technology or Basic Technology in your time, we can all agree that this was one of the toughest subjects. And we know it has nothing to do with working in tech, but even though!
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A Week In The Life: Medical Student By Day, Executive Assistant At Night
A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
Today’s subject is a 22-year old combining two tedious roles as a medical student and an executive assistant. She talks about the requirements of each role, her supportive boss and how she tweaks her schedule to accommodate everything.
MONDAY:
I wake up at 6:30 a.m. every day, but that doesn’t happen today. After sleeping through four alarms, my roommate has to step in where the machines have failed. She taps the bed gently while calling out my name. I reluctantly open my eyes and take in our small room. There’s a ceiling fan rotating idly over my head, the metal on the double bunk beds have gotten a fresh coat of paint, and the rug has seen better times. “I’m up,” I say to her.
The first thing I do is to try to hustle bathroom space. As a student in a public university, the greatest struggle is having a germ-free bath. And that’s why wide-eyed, early in the day, I run to beat the soon-to-be-great-bathroom-rush of the girl’s hostel.
Thankfully, I come back to my room cleaner than I left. Then my day truly starts.
As a medical student, my day takes different turns. Sometimes, I have classes in the morning. At other times, it’s reviewing patients and presenting the findings to a consultant. Or, attending clinics and watching senior doctors in action to gain hands-on experience. Depending on the posting I’m in, it can be a combination of all three. This morning, I have online classes. At 8 a.m. I open my laptop and sign in for lectures.It takes all my willpower to stay awake during the lectures, and I’m super grateful when my last class ends by 3 p.m. I close my laptop and contemplate what to eat for lunch. Midway through my thinking, I decide that sleep is better than food. I put on a funny show on Netflix, draw my curtains, settle under my duvet and wait for sleep to come.
TUESDAY:I feel like I have two identities. The first is a medical student which encompasses all I do — school, writing, research and making my parents proud. Then my other [paid] job as an executive assistant [E.A] where I plan, schedule and organise. They’re both demanding, and I don’t know how I combine them seeing as I have only 24 hours in a day.
Being a student is the “easy” part because there’s a fixed schedule. But the second job? I’m always twisting and tweaking my calendar: work after classes, work during classes, work on weekends, work before classes. I like to say I go from work [school] to work-work [E.A].
Because I slept in yesterday, I’m starting my E.A job before school today. My boss, an entrepreneur, is trying to get into a new field, so I’m researching it. I know I can’t finish before lectures start, and I plan to take notes, listen in class while continuing my research. Once I’m done, I’ll schedule a few meetings and create content for social media. Then I’ll be free to focus on my lectures for the day.
On some level, I keep wondering how long I can sustain my second identity. The only reason I’ve been able to combine work and school is that the school hasn’t resumed clinical classes — ward rounds. Once that starts, I won’t get back until 12 a.m. or 1 a.m., and I’ll be too exhausted to do work-work. As much as I enjoy work and the financial independence it brings, medicine is still my first love. I’m still unsure if I want to write briefs and concept notes as a full-time career.
WEDNESDAY:
I like work-work for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my boss is a great human being. Even though she’s almost three times my age, she respects me. She listens to my opinions, asks for my input and she’s never bossy. It also feels good to be trusted with high-level stuff despite my age. Maybe because I’m Nigerian, being treated with respect by an older person is a big deal to me. After my experience with other types of employers, my boss is an angel.
The learning curve is another reason I like this job. I’m constantly reading interesting things. In one year, I’ve learned enough to talk about types of VC funding, angel investing and how to support entrepreneurs. It’s mind-blowing how much I now understand that entrepreneurship is the lifeline of a lot of countries. But, I’m still a 9-5 babe, thank you very much.
The real icing on the cake is that the relationship with my boss has progressed to mentorship. I’m constantly learning from her and sounding ideas off her. And she has been very gracious with her time and support.
Today, on a work call to check in on progress, she kept asking about my welfare and school. We ended up talking about me and the importance of school above everything else. It felt good to be treated like a human being by an older adult.
THURSDAY:
The best part about having a job as a student is financial independence. My E.A job pays me well enough to not ask my parents for money. I don’t remember the last time I collected money from them. Even though they know my salary, they still insist on sending me money.
I appreciate my parent’s love and support, but I don’t want to be a burden on them. They’ve never said I’m a burden, so it’s weird that I feel that way. On some level, I think it’s because I know the sacrifices they made to see me through an expensive secondary school. Now, I just want them to spend on themselves and plan for their retirement. Ever since Nigeria hit that 2016 recession, I’m no longer sure they have a retirement fund. Things have gotten so hard that I wonder how my parents have managed to keep me afloat. Earning an income means they can focus on themselves for once in their lives. But they still feel I’m their responsibility. I guess being a parent is to be forever responsible for your kids no matter how old they turn.
I’ll just have to get used to it. Just the same way I’ve gotten used to my dad sending me money randomly, like today, no matter how much I refuse. I plan to call to thank him.
FRIDAY:
I have been winging school so far. I find time to read when I can because I don’t schedule studying. Mostly, I study close to an exam or test. If I have an assessment on Friday, I’ll start reading on Wednesday. Other times, I’ll join study groups for revisions or just listen in class.
I know that as I approach my final year, things are going to get difficult. But I’m going to try my best to hold out for as long as I can. If push comes to shove, medicine is the most important thing to me, and my boss supports this. Thankfully, the skills from this job are transferable to any field, including medicine. I know that no matter how things turn out, this is an experience I’ll always cherish.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, fill this form.
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QUIZ: What Class Did You Belong To In Secondary School?
Did you belong to art class or commercial class? Did you even go to secondary school at all?
Take this quiz and we’ll tell you.
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QUIZ: If You Get 9/20 On This Quiz, You Were Cool In Secondary School
If up to 9 things on this list apply to you, you were definitely a cool kid in secondary school.
Check all that apply to you:
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QUIZ: Can You Make It To The End Of This JSS1 Math Quiz?
Finish this Math quiz to prove you’re smarter than a JSS1 student.
If you fail a question, the entire quiz ends.
What is the square root of 121?
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QUIZ: Can You Make It To The End Of This JSS1 English Quiz?
Make it to the end of this JSS1 English quiz to show your school fees did not waste.
If you fail a question, the entire quiz ends.
What is a noun?
