My Story: 'Life Does Not Reward The Good' By Chukwu Chigozie

My name is Chukwu Chigozie, born in the 80s. I was born into a family were education flows in the family but was faced with a challenging and difficult childhood were I had to write WAEC nine (9) times and JAMB seven (7) times. Now people gave up on me, I was used to hearing negative and abusive words about me. Words like Nothing good can come out from him, Olodo Rapata, Useless boy, was

even tagged the black sheep of the family. The highest position I ever attained before I gained admission into the university was 29 out of 30, I think my consolation was I was better than one person (humour).

I found myself doing menial jobs in Lagos to make ends meet but I have come to realize in life that “there is no such thing as menial jobs but menial minds”. At this point in my life, I had no friend and that is life for you nobody wants to be associated with failure; I had lost my self-esteem and self-confidence as a youth but what kept me going was “HOPE”.

I passed WAEC finally after the ninth attempt and JAMB after the seventh attempt. I gained admission into the University of Abuja to study Economics in 2007 and for me that was the end of a season and the beginning of a new season in my life. I saw myself doing things I could not do in the past effortlessly; I got my self-esteem and confidence back. I started tutoring my classmates back in school, was part of the tutorial team even established a tutorial center in Gwagwalada (that was how the entrepreneurial spirit in me arose).

In 2008/2009, I was the Image maker/PRO of Economics department after a keenly contested departmental election. In 2010, I was an SUG presidential candidate in the University Student Union election which was later cancelled indefinitely, I went back to my department and contested for the presidential election and I loss.

By 2011 December, I was a graduate of Economics, graduating with a Second Class Upper honours (2.1) in a class of over 270 students. By this time, my passion for human capacity building was burning and unquenchable.

In 2012, I wrote my first textbook in Econometrics titled “Econometrics Simplified, Volume 1 and in 2013, I followed in up with Econometrics Simplified, Volume 2. These textbooks are used by students in the universities.

For me so far, the high point in my life was in 2013 when over 700 students in University of Abuja were using my textbook to prepare for their Econometrics examination. I remember I was in a bus around September period going to gwags when a group of students were reading my textbook and got stuck at a point, one of them recognized me and I helped put them through right in the bus. It was a great joy and fulfillment for me.

Currently, I run a facility management company called “IZZY CLEANERS”. We clean, fumigate, landscape and beautify homes, offices, industrial and event arenas etc. Be it a one-off or retainership services, you can count on us for class, excellence and panache. Also we do Event Management, Protocol Security and Profiling.

In all I have gone through in life, I have come to realize that “Do not give up until you make your last attempt and do not make your last attempt until you succeed”. If I can go through all this life challenges and didn’t give up, you have no reason to give up on yourself. Your generation will never forgive you if you give up on yourself and on your future.

I leave you with this parting words “Life does not reward the good of the majority”.