Inspirational Grass to Grace Story of Nurudeen Owodunni
Written by Chiude Nnajiofor
From a security job with Metro Guard Lagos to a young boy who
engages himself in all manners of odd jobs in Boundary Market Ajegunle, a suburb, in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos State to
an educational consultant who has helped many Nigerian youths to actualize
their career dreams in overseas schools.
Owodunni Nurudeen rose from a humble polygamous background of
one man, five wives; he is the last child of the first wife of the late Amuda
Yusuf Owodunni who hailed from Kwara state but lived in Ajegunle in the early
1980s.
As a young boy, things were moving smoothly for the young
Owodunni until tragedy struck when his late father had stroke. Life gradually
moved from living a normal student life of a secondary school who had the basic
things of life to a security personnel in order to gather money to write
examinations and pay school fees at the University of Lagos and his unsuccessful
quest for greener pasture in Spain saw him back to Boundary market in Ajegunle
where he did all manners of odd jobs in order to make ends meet to the level of
becoming the Chief Executive officer of Glide Educational Global Consult, an
International Educational Consulting firm that specializes on guidance and
counseling for young students on career development.
Mr. Owodunni’s journey started one afternoon when he got back
from school and discovered his late father had a stroke. According to him,
things immediately went rough for the young Nurudeen who had the intention of
collecting money from his father for West Africa Examination Council
registration that fateful afternoon. “I
managed to raise the WAEC money from my friends. As fate will have it, I only
managed to have a credit in Yoruba language thereby failed other subjects. It was a terrible blow on me because I already
had so many challenges as a result of my father’s illness which was the cause
of my poor performance in WAEC. No one
was there to motivate or encourage me”.
I registered for General Council Examination (GCE) same year
and work so hard in covering the syllabus thoroughly and this time I cleared my
papers. I wrote Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), I also passed and
got admission into University of Lagos (Unilag) to study Law. While in Unilag,
I was doing a permanent night security job with Metro Guard; I was sent to work
in a Redeemed Christian Church of God at Orile. I worked there for three years
until one faithful December 25. Armed robbers came to rob the church and I was
badly injured, when my mother saw me in such a terrible state, she appealed to
me to quit the security job which I did”.
At this stage, things turned rough again as there was no more
salary to take care of bills and the challenges became so enormous for
him. It was at this point that his
friend who left the shores of Nigeria to Spain came back looking so healthy
with plenty money to throw around. He told him how easy it was to travel to
Italy through Libya with plenty of jobs waiting for him on getting there.
“I thought about my friend’s offer and the hardship I have
been going through. The essence of going to school is to make money I said to
myself. If I can actually make this money just like my friend said, then there
was no need suffering myself in the name of schooling and thereafter, endless search
for gainful employment. I left my law degree in 300 level, sold my mother’s
shop that I was helping her manage and set out with nine other young people
from Ajegunle for greener pastures overseas”.
Owodunni’s words: “My friend made travelling to Tripoli in
Libya to Italy seems easy but the truth is that, it was a terrifying experience
for me as six people out of the 10 of us that were travelling to Italy died on
the way out of starvation and some were stabbed by gendarmes who collected all
our money. We were stranded when we got to Libya; I learnt how to make pure
water and some other skills in order to raise money to continue my journey. At
this point, life was so difficult but going back was not an option as I
couldn’t face my mother whose shop I sold to raise money for the trip or any
member of my family.
Libya got so difficult that many Nigerians where jailed and
some were killed by the Muammar Gaddafi government. “I wasn’t comfortable with
the kind of job Nigerian where doing in Libya, so I set to move to
Morocco”.
When we got to Morocco I spent months in Rabat for me to
gather $1000 that will take me from Rabat to Malaga, I was there for three
months and some people that I was with were traced to the house as illegal
immigrants, we were all apprehended and deported back to Nigeria. On getting to
Nigeria, we were handed over to Alagbon police and we were asked to contact our
family members which I did not. I was later released, from there, I went
straight to Boundary market in Ajegunle and for five years I was in the market
doing odd jobs and as well sleeping in the same market with some young people
who do not have a place for themselves.
Right inside the market, I met a man who advised me to pick up a form and go back to school based on the way we interacted. “One thing I understand about life is that, in any journey, there is a lesson to learn from it. The man that introduced me into educational consulting was among those I met in the market and he was the one that encouraged me to pick a form from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism which I did in 2006 and went back to school after nine years of being out of school.
Right inside the market, I met a man who advised me to pick up a form and go back to school based on the way we interacted. “One thing I understand about life is that, in any journey, there is a lesson to learn from it. The man that introduced me into educational consulting was among those I met in the market and he was the one that encouraged me to pick a form from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism which I did in 2006 and went back to school after nine years of being out of school.
Going back to school
after nine years was challenging according to him but as time goes on, it
became much easier for him than when he started and that could best describe
his favourite quote which says: Your brain is like a rechargeable lamp.
It keeps charging as long as you keep using it. That
same 2006, he registered his Glide global educational consult with the sum of N50,
000 which he gathered from odd jobs he did in the market.
He went further to say that although the consulting job was
challenging for him at first because he started without a house or an office. “I
drafted letters addressed to different schools abroad, told them the
educational challenges we have here and how some Nigerians if given the
opportunity will be so happy to study overseas and how I want to serve as their
representative in Nigeria if given the opportunity to do that and from there I
will proceed to the cybercafé to e-mail the letters to them.
Before I knew what was going on, one school from Ukraine responded positively and told me how glad they were and will be willing to do business with me but needed to find out if I’m genuine and when they did, they sent me an invitation letter for familiarization tour because I told them that I needed to see what their school look like before I can start sending students to them, that was how I got my first visa to travel to Ukraine and they gave me franchise to represent them and as it stands today, I have so many schools I consult for all over the world and have richly being blessed through the consultancy job”.
Before I knew what was going on, one school from Ukraine responded positively and told me how glad they were and will be willing to do business with me but needed to find out if I’m genuine and when they did, they sent me an invitation letter for familiarization tour because I told them that I needed to see what their school look like before I can start sending students to them, that was how I got my first visa to travel to Ukraine and they gave me franchise to represent them and as it stands today, I have so many schools I consult for all over the world and have richly being blessed through the consultancy job”.
Nurudeen saw
a challenge in our educational sector, instead of complaining like many of us
will do, he decided to take the bull by the horn from the little money he made
from his odd jobs in the market and today, he has provided alternative solution
for many Nigerian youths who due to cut-off mark, accreditation challenges were
denied the right to study their choice of course in the universities and so
many other challenges rocking the educational sector and in trying to provide
alternative solution, he has provided for himself an avenue to make money and
employment opportunities for others who work with him.
No comments:
Post a Comment