The Owerri Experience
How do I explain a 5- year journey becoming elongated to 8 years, yet the traveller has no reason to regret? 'It doesn't make sense', that is what most people say. But for me, there is another side to the story.
Across the world, it is the dream, wish and prayers of every aspiring student to start a programme and end when expected. But in a number of times, such wishes are left as wish due to a number of factors.
A student's ability to comprehend all that is required may be in doubt, there may be unforeseen circumstances like strikes by the numerous unions, an occurence that has become deeply rooted in the academic calenders of most Nigerian government- owned public universities. For me however, the story is different, I'm a transferred student.
'Transferred students' are those that started their program somewhere and were taken somewhere else to complete their program. I started mine at the prestigious first Nigerian teaching hospital, University College Hospital, Ibadan. But I'm graduating with Imo state university. The transfer came at a time when I was envisioning myself as a graduate. But looking back at the history, I'd be damned if I had graduated then.
It's not that I didn't receive the best training I could get at the UCH, it was just a good quota of my training wasn't given. This quota is the true life lessons of ideating, deciding, competing, and dissapointments. As far as I'm concerned, UCH was a fairy tale while Imo state university is the real deal!
Thanks to the 2 academic sessions spent in IMSU, I've been able to have the school pass through me. I've internalized a lot of things, discovered some personal truths, polished myself, refined my skills, packaged my talent, and more importantly, IMSU had made me realize the stupidity, idiosyncratic nature, and perdition- and frustration- prone nature of a life without Christ.
While in UCH, the fairy tale made me believe that it's more about me than God. But here where many things can go wrong, and there is little or nothing any morally upright stupendous student can do to remedy the situation, calling on God is certainly a good call that I've learnt how to make often than ever.
God has used the last years of my undergraduate education to open my eyes to the realities in the world, how to survive without getting detered, and how to choose the right set of people with whom you can tag along. I've also learn how to grow from an unsung underdog to a force to reckon with, both within and outside one's jurispudence. In addition, I've been able to understand people of different roots and I've realized that our needs are the same, means are equal, challenges are similar and our approach is the only thing that uniquely define, not defile, divide or defy us.
I've also met great new people, some of whom are great destiny helpers and partners, with the help of whom I've experienced through and excelled at true life (and death) experiences.
These and many more peculiar nature of staying in an Igboland will be further elucidated in my about-to-be-published book. It is my own way of helping non- Igbos survive and enjoy the land, and depict the onye Igbos in their true colour, not the popular assertions.
Before I came here, I was angry, annoyed, perturbed, frustrated and in dire need of a lifeline, which I got in Owerri. And as I begin to count my last days here, I question is constantly on my mind- how will my life be without The Owerri Experience? The answer is simple, my life will suck!
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