BRICK BY BRICK

CHAPTER THREE

THE SECOND CHANCE

There are moments in life that don’t look important when they’re happening.

You don’t hear music.

There is no dramatic lighting.

Nobody announces:

“This is the moment everything changes.”

Sometimes, the most important moments look completely ordinary.

For me, one of those moments was when my uncle decided to give me another chance.

By then, I had already convinced myself that education was no longer part of my story.

I had dropped out of secondary school in SS1 in 2018.

I had started working.

I had learned how to survive.

I had gotten used to the idea that my life would probably follow a different path from the one I had imagined as a child.

Then, in 2022, my uncle took a chance on me.

He sent me back to school.

Four years had passed since I dropped out.

Four years of thinking the dream was dead.

Four years of working.

Four years of adjusting.

And suddenly, I was being given another opportunity.

I don’t know if I can properly explain what that felt like.

Imagine giving up on a dream so completely that you stop allowing yourself to imagine it.

Then one day, someone tells you:

“Try again.”

That’s what my uncle gave me.

Not just school fees.

Not just admission.

Not just a chance to sit in a classroom again.

He gave me the opportunity to believe in a future I had already buried.

And there was something almost frightening about it.

Because hope can be scary when you’ve lived without it for a long time.

When you expect nothing, disappointment becomes manageable.

But when someone gives you another chance, you suddenly have something to lose again.

I was scared.

What if I failed?

What if I wasn’t good enough?

What if I couldn’t catch up?

What if I couldn’t handle university?

What if I wasted the opportunity?

What if everybody who believed in me ended up regretting it?

Those questions followed me.

But I went anyway.

And somehow, I ended up in a private university.

Even now, I sometimes look back at that and think about how unlikely it seemed.

Me?

A private university?

After dropping out of secondary school?

After believing education was finished?

Life has a strange sense of humour.

The same person who thought his education had ended in SS1 was now sitting in a university classroom.

I was studying Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution.

I had gone from carrying blocks and stocking supermarket shelves to sitting in lectures, writing assignments and preparing for exams.

But getting back into school didn’t magically make life easy.

In some ways, it became another kind of struggle.

Nigeria had its own plans for my pocket.

Everything became more expensive.

Transportation.

Food.

School expenses.

Basic things.

The money my uncle provided helped me tremendously, but I couldn’t keep asking him for every little thing.

I knew what sacrifice looked like.

I knew how hard people worked for money.

And I didn’t want to become completely dependent on someone else.

So I worked while I studied.

Again.

Just in a different environment.

There were times when I was broke in school.

Not “I don’t have enough money for the weekend” broke.

I mean the kind of broke where you start calculating everything.

How much is left?

What can I eat?

What can I postpone?

What can I do without?

How long until the next money comes?

Those moments were especially difficult during examinations.

There is something cruel about being stressed about money when you’re already stressed about passing an exam.

Your brain is supposed to be thinking about theories, assignments, definitions, lectures and revision.

Instead, part of your mind is calculating survival.

You try to concentrate.

But your stomach reminds you that you haven’t eaten properly.

You try to study.

But your pocket reminds you that transportation costs money.

You try to remain calm.

But reality keeps knocking.

Still, I kept going.

Sometimes I went into examinations broke.

Sometimes I was exhausted.

Sometimes I wondered whether quitting would be easier.

And honestly?

It probably would have been.

There were moments when giving up sounded peaceful.

Nobody would blame me for trying and failing.

I had already dropped out once.

I could always tell myself:

“At least you tried.”

But something inside me refused to stop.

Maybe it was the little boy who had watched his future disappear.

Maybe it was the thirteen-year-old who had carried blocks for ₦2,000.

Maybe it was my uncle’s belief in me.

Maybe it was my sisters.

Maybe it was all the people who had helped me along the way.

Maybe it was God.

Probably all of them.

I couldn’t afford to waste the second chance.

So I pushed.

Semester after semester.

Assignment after assignment.

Exam after exam.

Mistake after mistake.

Victory after victory.

I kept going.

And somewhere along the way, something beautiful happened.

I began to enjoy becoming better.

I started discovering that I wasn’t only trying to get a degree.

I was becoming someone.

I became involved.

I took on responsibilities.

I built relationships.

I found opportunities.

I began creating.

I started discovering the creative side of myself that would eventually become such an important part of my identity.

The boy who once thought his story had ended was slowly writing another version of it.

I wasn’t just surviving anymore.

I was building.

And this time, I had a blueprint.

Not a perfect one.

But enough to keep going.

There were people who believed in me.

My uncle.

My sisters.

My sister’s husband.

My friends who became family.

People who encouraged me.

People who inspired me.

Even people who doubted me.

I’ve learned something strange about doubters.

Sometimes, your enemies can accidentally become part of your motivation.

Not because you should live your life trying to prove people wrong.

But because sometimes someone underestimating you reminds you that you should never underestimate yourself.

Some people became fuel without even knowing it.

And I used that fuel.

I kept moving.

Years earlier, I had dropped out of school thinking that was the end.

Now I was getting closer and closer to the finish line.

But the closer I got, the more emotional it became.

Because I knew exactly where I had started.

I knew what it felt like to leave school because there was no money.

I knew what it felt like to work at an age when I should have been dreaming about other things.

I knew what it felt like to believe education was no longer available to me.

So every time I walked into that university, I carried more than books.

I carried the memory of the boy who couldn’t continue.

I carried the memory of my father.

I carried the sacrifices of my family.

I carried my uncle’s decision to believe in me.

I carried every broke day.

Every difficult examination.

Every moment I wanted to quit.

Every person who had encouraged me.

Every person who had doubted me.

I carried all of it.

And eventually, I reached the finish line.

Graduation day.

A Second Class Upper Division.

When I saw those words, I didn’t just see a degree.

I saw a little boy.

A ten-year-old boy who lost his father.

I saw a teenager who had to grow up too quickly.

I saw a sixteen-year-old who dropped out of school.

I saw a young man who had convinced himself that his education was over.

I saw the worker carrying blocks.

The boy sweeping floors.

The boy stocking shelves.

The student sitting through lectures while worrying about money.

The student entering examination halls while broke.

The person who kept going when quitting would have been easier.

And then I understood something.

The degree wasn’t the most important thing I had earned.

I had earned proof.

Proof that a setback can be real without being permanent.

Proof that losing your way doesn’t mean you can never find it again.

Proof that sometimes a closed door is just a door you haven’t figured out how to reopen.

Proof that your story can pause.

But it doesn’t have to end.

I stood there with my degree and thought about my father.

I wondered what he would have said.

I wondered whether he would have been proud.

I wondered what he would think if he could see how far life had taken his son.

I don’t have the answer.

But I like to imagine he would smile.

Because the boy he left behind didn’t give up completely.

He stumbled.

He fell.

He got tired.

He got lost.

But he kept building.

Brick by brick.

And maybe that is what this entire journey has been about.

Not becoming successful overnight.

Not having everything figured out.

Not pretending that life suddenly makes sense.

Because even now, it doesn’t.

There are still questions.

Still dreams.

Still uncertainties.

Still things I want to accomplish.

But I know something now that I didn’t know when I was ten.

You can lose something and still find another way.

You can fall behind and still catch up.

You can stop and still start again.

You can lose your way and still find your direction.

And most importantly:

You can think your story is over when God is only turning the page.

So when I look at that degree, I don’t just see education.

I see a second chance.

I see sacrifice.

I see grace.

I see family.

I see God.

I see the people who carried me when I couldn’t carry myself.

And I see myself.

Still standing. Still becoming. Still building.

The little boy who thought his story ended when he dropped out of school was wrong.

His story had only paused.

And when it started again, it came back stronger.

Brick by brick.