I attended Offa Grammar School for my secondary education and by the time i finished my secondary school, i already finish my haflat shahada (Equivalent to secondary education) in my Arabic school and people has started calling me Alfa because of my character and mode of dressing. Need to say here that my or our way of living is like the ulamah (Alfas), my trouser doesn’t touch ground, this was what i grew up to know as even in my secondary school, my parent sew my trouser in a way that it doesn’t touch ground.
I was a brilliant boy while in secondary school, in fact my WASSCE result was 3A’s 3B’s and 2c’s while one result was withheld, i think it was Yoruba that they didn’t release. The next phase of my life was Jamb, even though our family was a bit broke by this time but my parent made sure i obtained the form, my elder sister (Zainab) at this time was already through with her OND in Federal polytechnic Offa.
My sister’s support during this time was immeasurable, she already started her IT with one of the commercial bank in our town and with the little she was earning and she used that in supporting the family too. I wrote my jamb and thank God i scored 284 and Unilorin was my first choice of institution, i never even wanted to go to polytechnic like my sister in the first place.
Fast forward to few months after my jamb, i was offered admission to study economics in Unilorin and this changed my entire life totally. As it was to be, i couldn’t be coming from Offa to Ilorin on a daily basis which means i had to settle for hostel or accommodation outside the school. Unfortunately for me, i was not able to secure school hostel as i did not pay on time which means i had to settle for hostel outside the campus.
Admission to Unilorin was virtually the first time i will be spending my total time in Ilorin, as have been to Ilorin just twice in my entire life and my admission was an opportunity to know what is going on in the outside world for the first time.
Looking for hostel, my dad tried to connect with alot of people both family members and friends that are staying in Ilorin so that i can reside with them but most people we relate with are either staying in Amoyo, Sango, Sobi Barrack side and the likes. The closest family we saw was those staying in fate basin and GRA.
While we were trying to connect with series of people we learnt from one of our old neighbour that Ismaeel is already in unilorin, we were told he got admitted the previous year studying finance and he was staying outside school in Tanke which is like N10 cab to school.
Me and Ismaeel attended the same madrasa while growing up, in fact we did our shahada (graduation) together in our Arabic school and he was even more brilliant than me. My parent also know him very well but we never knew he had gotten admission already because they moved out of our area to their own house when they completed it almost two years ago.
Our parent reconnected us together and it was a big surprise when we realized that Ismaeel was staying alone in the house they secured for him. Since he has already paid for the house rent of that year, it was agreed that both of us will be sharing the accommodation fee equally every year. Initially his parent doesn’t want him to stay with anybody because of bad influence but had to agree since they know my background and we have been like one family since our childhood.
To Be Continued…
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