Achievement Through Adversity

By Taj Oladele Ashafa DBA MBA BSHA

This is the story of my life, which I want to use to encourage other people that if you believe in God, no matter the trouble you have, he can still deliver you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984514950

Taj Oladele Ashafa DBA MBA BSHA

This is the story of my life, which I want to use to encourage other people that if you believe in God, no matter the trouble you have, he can still deliver you.

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Copyright © 2018 by Taj Oladele Ashafa, DBA, MBA, BSHA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/30/2019

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Contents

Let’s us live a valuable life

Power Over Word

Wisdom Prompts Us To Do What Is Right

Your dream and vision are free, but the journey is not.

Understanding Your Organization’s Change Needs

Increasing Awareness

How to Get Your Share of Ethereum?

How to Buy Litecoin

Buying New Economy Movement with a Few Clicks

Weighing Risk vs. Opportunity

The Death of my Grandmother

Team of panhandler

What is making you cry?

Acknowledgments

This is the story of my life which I want to use to encourage other people that if you believe in God, no matter the trouble you have, He can still deliver you.

My father is from Osun state and my mother from Oyo state, both in Nigeria, the western part of Africa. My father moved to Lagos state, the major state and business centre in Nigeria when he was about 25 years old. My mother left her hometown in Oyo and moved to Lagos as well to look for better opportunities. As years went by, destiny brought them together, and they got married. My father was a very tough and hot-tempered man. He used to work at the Seaport and was a manager who oversaw the imports through the port. My mom got a job at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). My grandmother, dad’s mom lives in Osun state, in Ile-Ife. My grandfather was from Ilesha, in Osun state, also but he resided in Ile-Ife where they both met. My grandfather died the year my brother was born which was in 1980 at the age of 65 and nobody knows what caused his death. My parents, my brother and I went to Ile-Ife for the burial of my grandfather; I was almost two years old. Then my grandmother requested if my parents could allow her to raise me. They agreed, and I started living with my grandmother. My grandmother was good to me, as she had, for a long time, wanted a little girl from my dad so bad. It was sad because she lost 9 out of 11 children that she had through different tragedies in her life. The 2 kids she had left were boys, my dad and his brother and they were grown up liven on their own. Nevertheless, my parents couldn’t resist her request for her to raise me and she did that in an Islamic environment where she lived. She was religious and took me to the Mosque every time. She loved God and would pray five times a day. However, we had very many problems due to poverty. She was a peasant farmer, and we would go to the farm and often sold Cocoa beans in its season to buy basic commodities. I started primary school, and that year my dad visited us and brought me some clothes and other school items. In my first-grade year [Primary one] as we called it in Nigeria, I was expelled from school due to my medical condition. I had a seizure disorder. The school authority thought my medical condition was something that was contagious. My grandmother and I were sad for being terminated from elementary school. The whole school year passed as my grandmother treated me with all kinds of native medicine. She later took me to another elementary school, some miles away, where nobody knew my story. I got registered as a first grader again even though I would have been in second grade at my old school if I had not been expelled. Miraculously, I never had seizure attacks in my new school, and the few times I had them I was at home. With time, I eventually grew out of it altogether by God’s grace. My dad visited us, and my grandmother asked him about my mother. He said that they had separated and that my mom had returned to her hometown in Oyo with my little brother. Some years passed, and one day, I came back from school and met my mom with my grandmother. She had come to visit us and see how I was adjusting. She told me that she and my father had separated and that she was going back to Lagos for work. She also said that my grandmother, her mother, would be raising my little brother in Oyo state in the meantime until she gets herself together. I was sad, but I couldn’t help the situation. That was how everyone in the family departed due to anger tantrums of my father. Years went by, neither of my parents visited, and life got harder financially for my grandmother and me. I started selling Kerosene which people in Nigeria were using in their stoves for cooking and to light firewood. Every day I came back from school at 3 P.M, I would carry gallons of kerosene to the market and sell it liter per liters. The profit is what we used to make ends meet. I would get back home late at night at around 10 or 11 pm sometimes. During the weekend we would go to the farm to try to harvest yams or Cassava to sustain us. Sometimes, however, we would come back home with nothing but firewood.

Life went on, and I got promoted to second grade. At school, we were asked to contribute some money to buy a water bucket for fetching water for the classroom because there was no water in the school premises. This water fetching was a daily routine, and each student in the classroom would fetch water for the classroom when it reaches his or her turn. Whenever it is your turn, you would arrive early to school to fetch the water for drinking. When my turn came, I took the plastic jerrycan to the well which was a long walk from the school. When I was done fetching the water from the well, I looked around for assistance to get the 16 gallons of water container on my head because it was heavy but no one was around or passing by at the well. I then struggled to lift the container myself, in the process, it slipped off my hands, hit the hard ground, and the container broke. I was scared to return to school without the jerrycan and the water so I went home and told my grandmother about the incident and she went with me to the school. She apologized to the class teacher, but she refused and insisted that I must pay for it or bring the same brand-new bucket for the class. My grandmother was saddened because she couldn’t afford a brand-new jerrycan and the money we were getting from selling kerosene liter by liters with a total of seven gallons couldn’t buy it either. I asked her to allow me to quit school until I get enough money to buy the new jerrycan. She asked, How can you possibly do that and what are you going to do to generate that kind of money? I told her that I would be going to the farm to get firewood and sell it to the restaurants in the city that normally use it for cooking. She agreed with me because there was no way she could have helped me to pay for it. The farm was 20 miles away from the city, and I used to carry the firewood on a daily basis. I could only make one trip per day because I walked that long distance to and fro. Two weeks later, I had gathered enough money for the water jerrycan. I then asked my grandmother if she could allow me to continue selling firewood instead of going back to school because, during that time, I had a constant income which we were using to buy the basic needs. The feeling of not having to worry about what we were going to eat, and having money in my pocket was very pleasing to me. However, my grandmother insisted that I go back to school. At first, I was reluctant because of the shame of returning to school and all the time I had missed school was a barrier for me. However, I listened to her went back to school. When I got to school and entered my classroom, the whole class stared at me with curious eyes as though I had fallen from the sky. They had thought I was never going back, and in my absence, the teacher had asked them to contribute money again to buy a new jerrycan that I was not going back to school. They asked me what had happened, but because I was very uncomfortable to tell them what had gone through, I told them that I had been sick and that was why I had not gone to school all that time. The teacher then asked me for the money, and I gave it to her joyfully. I had expected that she was going to refund the other kids the money she had collected from their parents for another Jerrycan, but corruption stopped her from doing the right thing.

Despite the passion I had for education, the environments, both at school and home, was not conducive to learning. In this case, I was puzzled as to how I was going to complete all the work. I needed some help in explaining the materials or something on how they would be done, but the teacher didn’t have time for me. I did what I could and submitted the work. Unfortunately, the teacher was not satisfied with them, and I was held back for another year. I never understood why I was always caught up in unfortunate circumstances. Almost the same scenario that happened at primary 2, Second grade happened again in Fourth grade. This time around, my class teacher conditioned everyone in the class to buy an English textbook she was selling to the class. I could not afford it, and I was barred from attending classes until my textbook was bought from the class teacher. This time around, my grandmother didn’t want me to miss school. She gave me the only money that was for the kerosene’s business. Mind you, the money could only buy 7 gallons of kerosene which I sell liter by liters, and it was just enough for the textbook. I gave the money to the teacher, but I was not given my textbook. She said they were sold out, but she ordered for more. Month after month the teacher didn’t say anything about the book. She only allowed me to share with my classmates who had bought it early. However, my grandmother kept asking me for the textbook, and I would tell her what the teacher told me that the books had not arrived yet. One day my grandmother got tired of the excuses and showed up in my school. She came into my classroom went straight to the teacher and requested for her money. She told the teacher that the school year is almost over and there was no sense of buying the textbook any longer. The teacher refused with the money, and my grandmother grabbed a chair and sat at the entrance of the classroom, and said that she was not going to leave until the teacher refunds her the money. In the process of that, the head teacher showed up, asked my grandmother what the problem was, and then clarified the matter with my class teacher. The headteacher settled the matter, but the teacher couldn’t refund the money that very day. She told my grandmother that she would give the money back to me the following day. She gave me the money the following as she had said and we put it back to our kerosene business. The final year came, and the teacher held me back to repeat fourth grade. I was sad because I was held back twice in elementary, three times if we count my dismissal in my first school. Nevertheless, the disappointments and hardships never stopped me from going to school each day without complaint.

My father married another wife who coincidentally was from Ile-Ife. He used to visit us alone with my grandmother, but he later introduced the lady who was to become my stepmother to me. When she was about to move in with my dad to Lagos, she asked my Dad to let me come live with them. My dad said if my grandmother would allow then it would be okay. I was happy when my grandmother said yes that I could go live with my dad and stepmom as I knew they were going to assist me with my academics. I was 13 years old when I moved with my dad and stepmom. Life was easier and meaningful for me in Lagos and never had to struggle for necessary items that money could buy. My stepmother got pregnant and was blessed with a baby boy. However, furious clashes and physical altercations with my dad got persistent, and my stepmother could not take it anymore. One day I came back from school before my dad arrived from work and I saw a note that she had moved back to Ile-Ife with her son. I was confused and overwhelmed. I thought my dad would be sad about that also when he comes back, but it was another way around. He showed no concern at all! In fact, he said he was better off without her anyhow. Eventually, I adjusted and became the one that cooked and took care of the house. I would visit my mom and her family time to time. She had also remarried and had twins, a boy, and girl. The man she married was a high school principal and cool-headed gentleman. Soon, I started noticing unnecessary vexes from my father toward me, especially whenever I went to my mom, and he got home before me. I would always find trouble when I get back home. It would be a terrible night under the sky with whooping with a belt or whatever he laid his hands on. The situation worsened each day. It got to the point of excess physical and mental abuse, and he would even say that I had collaborated with my stepmother to leave him. He would often release his anger and frustration on me. Other times he would slap me across my face and call me names including calling me a wizard. He used to smoke marijuana, and whenever he smokes it, he would be calm and happy. But when he didn’t take it, he would be highly tempered and could be offended even by small mistakes I made. I would say whenever he was high, things were smooth, and he would pamper me and would even ask if I needed anything at home or in school. He could show concern and care for my wellbeing today, but the following day he would behave like a monster, treating me like a stranger who was the source of all his problems. Such days, I would be too scared to approach him when he came back from work. It always felt like two people were living inside him.

My dad was a Christian, and while living with him, I started going to church with him. I became a Christian and sometimes went to church alone during the week. I focused on school, and I was getting good grades since I didn’t have to worry about selling and farming. I had time to read, and I was taking after-school lessons to help with assignments and extra instructions on class works.

Two years after my stepmother moved out, my father lost his job. According to my dad’s story, he oversaw a ship that was supposed to arrive in Nigeria Ship Port at 3:30 pm, but it delayed, and he wasn’t sure if it would still arrive that day. He waited until 5:30 PM before he left his office. The ship arrived at 6.30 pm, and by that time he was already home. Since he was not there to oversee offloading, the ship was burglarized, and most of the expensive goods were stolen before morning. When he got to work the following morning, he was queried and accused that the missing goods had been his plan. For the first time, I saw my dad crying that day as he narrated to me how he had been accused of burglary yet he knew nothing about it. The third day he went to work, and he was arrested and accused to be one of the organizers of the thieves and, was sentenced to 28 months in prison. His salary was stopped. House rent and some other bills were piling up.

I went to my mom and explained to her what had happened, thank God, she lived in Lagos. She started providing for my needs. My dad had some friends that used to work with him in our neighbourhood; those guys knew what happened to my dad. They would stop by our house to check how I was doing and left me with some money which I used to pay the monthly rent and some other bills in the house. On one weekend, I had spared some extra money, and I decided to visit my grandmother upcountry. She was very happy to see me, but I never told her that my dad had been jailed. I only said that my dad had