21ST CENTURY FIRST-CLASS GRADUATE
INTRODUCTION
Tobiloba Adelaja exposes us to his life years after graduating top of his class.
The great life of a first-class Nigerian graduate isn’t as great as society paints it to be. Everything na hustle
Follow the crazy life of this young man as he opens you to the hidden myths and truths of being a Nigerian graduate.
Things are about to go down.
EPISODE 1
THE ALMIGHTY FORMULA
A lot of you must have heard this countless times without a number “Go to school, get good grades and you will secure a good job”. This is cliché to me. [I was being modest, it’s a preposterous belief. I tell you, this na scam!]
Whoever created the formula that ‘going to school + getting high degree certificate + securing a good job equaled a great life’ that person must have been high on weed. Because I solved it the same way, and guess what_ the great life isn’t as great as you think (although I’m not so great at math, this is a basic 2 +2 and yet I keep getting numbers that aren’t 4). This reminds of the Almighty formula. I specifically hated math because of it, every mathematical solution traced back to this formula. My math teacher never really helped matters. Mr. Adeyemi, my big-headed math teacher (his head was really big, I bet he stored all the mathematical formulas in there) would always walk into class and the first thing he would do was to write the formula on the board and in Thor’s voice he would enunciate the words ‘The Almighty Formula’. I hated it so bad, I still do. Give it a few years from now, this formula will become a myth. Not the Almighty Formula, cause that one has been existing since the days of my ancestors but the ‘great life formula’, this one is slowly diminishing.
This is the real world, the 21st-century world, where no one gives a crap about who you work for [actually I take that back, if I was working as the personal assistant of Donald Trump or Paul Pilzer or Jeff Benzo, a lot of people will care.] What I meant to say was, this is the 21st century, where the graduating top of your class is nothing but added-value. It doesn’t always guarantee half the life of Elon’s Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. This is without stating the obvious (the not so obvious is that, they were high school dropouts). A few of you may already know this, but no actually one cares. Their entire Wikipedia page is full of their many inventions, contribution to society, awards and their multi-billion dollars net worth. Who cares about your certificate when you’re on Forbes list- NO ONE!
Now, young kids if by accident you fall upon this, please don’t drop out of school, education is key to success and I know you want to make your parents proud, so please don’t be like uncle Zuckerberg and drop out (I’m on my knees begging). I won’t be responsible for any child’s decision. This story is therefore rated 18.
Now that we have covered the legal part of my story, it’s only proper that you put a name on this wonderful genius. My names are Tobiloba Adelaja and I’m a 21st century ‘Nigerian’ unemployed graduate with crazy life. The Nigerian had to be added because a white kid graduating from Stanford University doesn’t need to worry about employment (most of them). Many of them have been working even while in school but for us Nigeria kids, who-dash-monkey-banana.
School or no-school we still all scavenge in the labour market for a decent and well-paying job. The opportunity to work mostly comes in the 3rd/4th year when we go for Industrial Training (I.T), even that one na hustle.
A friend of mine spent the six months he should have been working looking for I.T placement. He had to forsake the next semester just because the system is rigid (a story for another episode). All I’m saying is that we Nigerian youth face a serious issue when it comes to finding a lucrative job in the economy, this is irrespective of your degree.
The competition for Multinational companies like Shell, Mobile, KPMG, MTN, is on a high side. No Nigerian graduate after spending 4/5 years dealing with absurd rules and ‘God when’ lecturers will choose to settle for a job where the pay is competing with the minimum wage.
In the voice of my guy “no be for this life wey I go settle for peanut”. I’m pretty sure I know what the adults will say “start small and come out big”. That one is in the days of ‘aye ati jor” Starting small doesn’t mean one should settle for government scarp value or the corruption of many of these big private firms.
Let’s face it, too many graduates are emerging every year, this is as against the early ’50s where there weren’t so many people going to school much less graduating and with this increasing marginally scale, there is bound to be excess demand because of the few organizations we have in Nigeria.
With my basic knowledge of economics, this is simply higher demand (Nigerian graduates) chasing fewer goods (jobs). At the moment, the unemployment rate is screaming 23% in the faces of NYSC/ final year students, at least those who don’t have connections at the upper chamber of the industry. Not to worry, we have enough time to dive into the economics of unemployment in another episode. But the fact remains that, formula or no formula ‘“no be for this life wey I go settle for peanut”.
Now, let me introduce you to the crazy part of my life.
If you love this you will love my recent article to all graduates
EPISODE 2
OLODO RABATA
I might have failed to mention to you, I’m a first-class graduate (I know, I know…genius, right). I wanted to establish that knowledge pending the list of things you will get to know about me; some funny and others not quite, like I said ‘crazy life’. You will seriously doubt my degree as we go on, because ….just you wait and see.
All through primary school, I was always the dumb kid. You know, the one all teachers never wished to have in their class. I was the kid teachers used as a reference point (in a bad way). It took me three years to learn how to add numbers, it was that bad. My fellow pupils mocked me all time. I went by the name “olodo”, that was common back then. I trust a few of you can relate, I felt bad.
It wasn’t because I resistant to learning or lazy, nothing of that sought. My brain just refused to process information as it should. It was as slow as my last 2.00GB laptop processor (I hated that laptop so bad). By the time my slow-poke brain decides to catch up, a decade would have gone by [ok, that is pure exaggeration] but you get the picture.
And NO, just in case you think I was mentally retarded. My brain was just the same size as Isaac newton, even though I may not have thought of gravity.
If the processor of my brain had been a bit faster I bet I would have beat Archimer to ‘Leverage’. Oh, I’m a science guy. And because of how frustrating it became for the teachers in my school, I was transferred to another school, yet still the same result. So, I spent part of my childhood jumping from one school to another. To be precise I attended 3 different primary schools in 5yrs. The stress that put on me as a kid was unbelievable.
My father believed I was capable of greatness. In his words “You’re not the problem, your teachers are. If they can’t see greatness in you, then, they don’t deserve to teach you” And because of this belief in my “greatness”, my father kept changing both my schools and home tutors.
Fast forward into secondary school. I narrowly got admitted into a prestige private school. I said narrowly because my name appeared last on the list of newly admitted students.
Precisely the number 500, then ROYAL COLLEGE were only admitting five hundred students that year. My parents spared no expense in my education because they believed so much in me. (WARNING TO THE ADULT: DON’T EVER LOOK DOWN ON YOUR CHILDREN)I wanted to sound that note of warning because, if my parents had believed I was retarded you won’t be reading this today.
Secondary school was hellfire for me (I don’t even want to imagine the fury of the literal hellfire). Some of the kids in my primary school made it to KINGS COLLEGE. They started telling other kids I was nicknamed ‘olodo’ and because I confirmed it in my subsequent failed tests and assignments, everyone in school soon began to call me ‘olodo rabata’ (oh, please don’t feel sorry for me. I’m laughing at the moment). Now, I know you must be wondering ‘Tobi, first-class genius…olodo ke, bawo?”
This continued till I was in J3 when I was preparing for junior WAEC (the most irrelevant exam I have ever written). I had made 2 friends, Joshua and Victor. They were the best students in the class. If today I call myself a genius, it is because of them. They taught me how to read and assimilate. I learnt a lot from them academically.
I never really had A’s or so much B’s but because of them, I was able to pass my junior WAEC in crawling result. (I had all C ).
After that, the name olodo became a tale only few can remember. A lot changed about my brain, the processor began to work at normal speed. A lot of girls began to see me as ‘the guy’, my teachers never again looked at me liked their salary was not enough, my parents reduced the prayers over my head. I even stopped coming last in class; I passed that baton to another kid. I wasn’t glad to be an average student, but I was so happy to drop the name ‘olodo rababta’
Looking back at my childhood difficulties, I can’t help but wonder what all the education was for if I was going to end up waiting on a job that may never come. I only shared this part of my story just for you to know I never started as an ‘A’ student. Even in my senior year, I remained average.
Having this prior knowledge let me take you through the craziness of my unemployed life.
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Stay tuned for Episode 3 next week Monday.
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