My Dream, the Picture & Me

Photo Cedit: @Tifegraphy

Since it wouldn’t cost me more to let you into my world, I have chosen to take you through this journey I someday hope will become the voice through which I’ll be remembered when I am gone.

Like every child, my childhood dream was tall & larger than life. Then it began to shrink as life wagged me into a face, an individual & a young mind trying to walk through the maze of being me. At first, it was so hard sticking to a particular dream. I was good at everything. My attention span was extremely sharp & I spent less trying to learn whatever I wanted to. I was cool trying out stuff & so happy making others learn to do whatever it was I did on my own. I was good with words, music, drawing, acting, & thinking. I loved being me in many tiny spaces — my world was always in my head. I dreamt of speaking up in some stadium & holding a microphone with thousands of persons listening to me.

It was always my dream to be big — I thought big & dreamt big.

Then life happened. Things turned. I lost the truth of being like everybody & shunned my dreams as my life clicked away. I feared too much there wasn’t a need to dream. It was safe being unheard. I tried it out a couple of times & it was easy doing it. Then, I gave in. I stopped dreaming & began to steal other people’s dreams. I began to own my parents’ openness to fate. My neighbours’ evaluation of who I was felt good. It was cool being around friends who were regular while I stood in as the irregular. I was only a child — may be in my 7th grade. I blended in quickly with the new me & straight to hell, my life turned. I grew up empty & spacious with no dream to call my own. A runoff into 9th grade, I failed out of school with just 2 credit passes, 4 Ds, 1E & 2 Fs. I still didn’t see my nightmare swelling into a blast until my colleagues ringed me up about their admissions into the University.

Oh, the dreamer only loses his dream trying to be another’s dreamer. I lost my very version of me as it was harder not knowing how to navigate life with parents who barely passed out of secondary school themselves. I will be responsible for this part of my life because all they had was all they gave me — their life, their sweat & their love. My life was in my hands, I own my dreams.

Years later, my college grades came out green — As, Bs & maybe 2 Cs. I was a good student after all. I just didn’t pay attention to my intelligence. Then life again happened, this time it took me back to my beginning. The main reason I feared my dreams weren’t mine. The reason I tried to dream other people’s dreams & lost out on my dreams as a miracle like my Mum always calls me. I was almost 17 years of age when I was called back for my cleft surgery — this time, the goal wasn’t to get me to talk or hear like the previous four. All the dental surgeons wanted to do was give me my life back with their Smile Train. & I did smile my way out of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital after two rounds of critical surgical procedures on my hard & soft palate including some part of my nose & ear.

My dream gradually walked back into me & again, I started seeing myself on the podiums. I started smiling wider & seeing the best of me telling my story as well as other people’s stories. I felt happier seeing myself in tall buildings & holding conversations around matters bothering a range of persons I am yet to number. It was cool, all in the dream but in real life, the opposite sat me down with a full jug of rich coffee. I had been lost for the best of my teenage life. From everything around my family & back to my first foster home. Life phased off like a tiny sparkle in the longest of nights I have ever experienced. So I took up a JAMB form without telling my foster parents & not knowing was I could do with my being lost on the inside.

I scribbled my home fat knowledge & had 250 as my overall score. This didn’t get me into the University even though it got my new friends. I left my foster home a few days later & headed home. It was one of the toughest decisions I had to make at that time — I needed to breathe, I was gassing out & it seemed no one cared. I went home & dreamt even more. The dreams this time weren’t taking the colourful shades of the rainbow; the picture began to hunt me deep down. It felt as though I was letting a voice inside me down & so, I agreed to be an apprentice to Mum’s Elder Cousin whose house was next to ours. I rose very early in the morning & found my way to some street in Maryland. There, I began to learn the craft of welding. It was beautiful to bring one’s ideas into life. I love the passion of Mum’s cousin even though I didn’t feel at home with his dream which was a reality then. He was the chairman of the welders Association of Nigeria in Maryland.

I cried for days & hoped God heard me for once.

He did hear my prayers as I started saving up my tips for the next JAMB. This time, I wasn’t going with the full grasp of what was it I wanted to be. I never really cared about being, all I wanted was to just be something, somebody. I wanted something tangible to hold. I reached out to people I felt could help me out but all they kept saying was “you are to do this! Go study that! You can’t do this & that because of your …” Yes, my speech impairment! Nobody ever saw me being human first before I was judged as being different. They always felt I needed some extra sympathy not for the life I already had but for the one they imagine I will have as a special individual.

I wouldn’t lose sight of the handful of persons that believed I could be something or maybe, somebody — my Sunday school teachers –Mr J. A. Elugbaju & my brother Mr Olalouwa Atokileso. The first helped me find a voice with words & written expressions. I still have my first-ever collection of essays which he circled out with red ink as though he had a way of politely saying “you are too good not to continue with this”. & the second grew from teaching to being my friend, brother & one of my most loved persons in the world.

I gained admission into the Department of English & Literature, University of Benin & began to love the empowerment words gave to the people I read in prescribed novels, dramas, poems, essays, critical discourses & creative compositions. Even though I had come into the University lost, I found my way back into my dream by loving the power of words. They were alive, rich & endless. I wanted to own the sparkle I had read about & also have been taught. For many after-class & dim light readings, I came out as one of the best students in my first year. This sparked something different inside me & I probed what shape my new found self was taking. It was a shift from being empty to being a lightweight. I felt I needed more & more I did get. By my second year, I was top of my class with a clear understanding of what my life was becoming. I had some prayers & meditations in some corner in my University’s chapel where I talked things out with God on the question — “what is my purpose in life?” I was blunt & wasn’t ready to take silence for an answer so I tarried in the place of prayer & cried my heart out mumblings inaudible sounds.

God did show up in the Matthews 5:13–16 where I was told that “I am the light of the earth… & I should let my light so shine that men may see & glorify my Father which is in heaven”. This was it; I was a light all the while still I chose to live in darkness because I thought people really didn’t need me to be my light. They were too full to acknowledge my being the very best of what they cannot be. I couldn’t blame anybody for living in their dreams, they made me loved theirs and in loving their dreams I began to lose sight of my dreams. I jumped out of the prayer room & made a decision to live out my dream. It was true that I had found an overall picture of my dream in the prayer room but the question that squeezed in next was how will I breakthrough this complex dream in terms of goals, career & a legacy?

I continued to study harder than I ever did in my third year & therein, I fell in love with news editing & research. These two acts made me curious about how things worked & the whys behind whatever were. I began to question everything that came around me & tried to learn beyond my course work just to get answers to things my regular academic coursework couldn’t teach me. In trying to question things around me, I began to lose my silence as I found a better version of me voicing out my opinions on whatever subject I felt I too could say a thing or the other on. It was cool & fun, I felt happier speaking up & I did speak & made use of words in dimensions my fears couldn’t contain any longer. I became fearless with words & so I spoke my truth whichever way it sounded — not minding the tone or person who wasn’t pleased with it. It was a journey of self-discovery for me & I was passionate about telling the world my own voice counted.

I graduated with a Second Class Upper result & was posted to Lokoja, Kogi state. It wasn’t my first time away from home but this was the best of me learning to live as an individual with a voice of his own. So I let myself be drilled by the routines in Asaya Camp. Again, in Asaya camp I lost out on being shy with my love for music. I knew I always loved being in the choir but it was very difficult for me to stitch it out that I was a chorister. But I did join the NCCF choir & ended up in the family house. There I lived out my outspoken self & for the best of days; it earned me friends & duties around my dream. I had always dreamed of holding a microphone before a large audience which I did on camp & my Place of Primary Assignment.

I will never forget the Jeremiah family fundraising which I initiated. The project was to help raise the school fees of four children which turned out successful as I was able to clear their previous term debts & also pay upfront for terms they were to spend after I passed out. This fund also helped me provide writing materials for the students in my Place of Primary Assignment as well as organized a cinema-experience for children in the neighbourhood. Not too long ago, I received a call from Lokoja that ever since I left the Jeremiahs’ have never for once been out of school for school fees because some persons bought into the dream of having them being educated.

For this part of my life, I felt discovered & seen. I gave my best to being this new me & in no time, I was appointed as the State Corps’ Editor for NYSC Kogi state. This gave me a platform to be a part of telling the stories of corps’ members in the state. It also let me in on trendy news items around selected officials. I felt valuable & wanted to even give more than the little I could before wrapping up my service year. & Back in Lagos, the dream had become clear & the picture clearer too but opportunities weren’t forthcoming. So I volunteered in PR duties in my parish & later in my archdeaconry. This helped me sustained my voice as I made a decision to always put up a written composition daily anywhere available — no matter how good or bad the day went. I did this for the first eight-month after service before I got a family offer to manage some properties which I am still putting up with presently.

If you read to this point, it means you sure want to know how I imagine things will play out with my dream.

Yes, I told you I had a dream of being a new editor — I want to someday own a digital newsroom but this type of newsroom will be basically for research. My goal is to be a voice for the disabled persons as I would love that they have a larger percentage in my workforce. I like to do this because I have come to know that information empowers & when these sets of persons have a hold on this part of humanity they will be heard. Our news item will be basically on researches conducted across the world with partial preference to Nigeria & Africa. In doing this, I understand that my BA degree wouldn’t take me anywhere near such a dream. So I made up my mind to get my MSc degree & PhD degree in Mass Communication or Sociology & Digital Journalism respectively. With an MA in Mass Communication, I want to focus on the reality of the media & print journalism where I get to understand the concept behind image, details, & formation of news items. My plan B is to take up an MSc in Sociology with a basic interest in Sociology of Communication wherein I get to understand the concept of Semiotics, Modality, Multimodality, Cultural context to image presentation, & the psychology behind the news item. I hope I can secure a scholarship to do this but so far, I have been saving up for an MSc program here in Nigeria with the tips I get from my volunteering job & sometimes, the freelance jobs I get once in a while. I hope to bag a PhD in Digital Journalism as the knowledge gotten from my MSc program (whichever clicks) will be a base for preparing me for the acquisition of a foregrounded knowledge about journalism & the digital space. I chose to restrict myself to the digital form of Journalism because I believe it is a sellable market in the nearest future as present-day mainstream journalism is gradually becoming a virtual entity. I also know that with a digital newsroom being channelled towards amassing the abilities of the disabled persons in Nigeria, Africa, & the world grants, partnership & support will be accessible in the long run. This also will place me perfectly in my childhood dream of being a voice not just for persons like me but for people around the world.

I know I am still scouting for a job to survive through meals still; I love to inform you that I have saved enough to get me an MSc form in Unilag by the end of this month. I know it all reads like a long walk to freedom but with guidance from God & everyone who believes in my dream, I will be the light I am meant to be. This is my dream, the picture & me.