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This reminds me of what happened in 2022 during 8 months of ASUU strike. Armed Robbers came to our house that night and all our items were stolen. They stole my laptop and my phone while my lil brother’s phone, money and ATM card were stolen as well.
The following day, my big brother called my lil brother to go and get a new phone, in his word “Go to a phone store and get any new phone of your choice”. My lil brother got there and called me, “which phone should I buy” and I told him to get iPhone 11 Pro Max. He called our big brother and told him the price, our Egbon made the payment.
I on the other hand, I told our big brother that I needed to get a new phone and laptop the same week but my Egbon turned me down. After two weeks of back and forth, our bro called me and said, go to a phone shop and ask for phone that’s not more than #70k. I told him what about my laptop and he said laptop can wait. At this point I was destabilized. Nevertheless, I went to get an iPhone 6s 64GB because there’s a budget constraint.
I told our mum about the whole incident immediately I got home and our mama said “is he your dad?, he’s your brother for crying out loud, you’re privileged to even have someone like him, and whatever he does to you, he has his reasons”. I began to look at the situation critically after my conversation with our mum. I asked myself, why would he give me a budget and did not give my brother, does he hate me, am I the problem etc.
I searched internally and I found out the following:
1. My lil brother has more economic value than I do because he works closely with our big brother. My lil brother can’t go a day without a phone because of the day to day running of the business while I can go months without a phone and nothing will affect the business. In all honesty, my lil brother contributes to the growth of the business and is more productive than I do.
2. We were not in a session because of ASUU strike so there’s no need for laptop or gadget. All I was doing was to eat, play games, surf internet etc.
After I carefully analyzed the situation, I realized that our big brother’s action was reasonable and justified. What do I do to correct this anomaly, so I asked myself. I took the blame because I put myself in that situation. If I had been contributing my own quota to the business and all, his actions would have been different. At this point, I told myself to be more useful and productive henceforth. I told my big brother the following day that I will be following him to work anytime we are on holidays and I will start tomorrow. He was like “Alakowe ni wo(student) and we are businessmen, what do you think you can do to help the business”. I responded, I will manage your warehouse and he said no problem.
I used all the period of strike to work closely with both my Big brother and lil brother in order to know how business activities are being carried out. Throughout my 7 months with them, I gained practical experience, valuable skills, customer relations, and I improved their modus operandi by putting in place organizational structures that can make their business to thrive. Someone that gave me a budget of 70k seven months ago later gave me over #1M When I was going back to school and that was the first time a million enter my account. The same person has been single-handedly sponsoring my undergraduate and postgraduate studies including professional qualifications. Imagine if I had vexed for him, call him out, or swear for him just because he did what he thought was the best, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.
Moral of this epistle
No matter how people treat you, regardless of what gestures shown to you, or your encounter with people, please do a self reflection, internalize and analyze your actions first. We are quick to say “that lecturer gives E but when you score an A, you won’t say that lecturer gives me A”. We tend to ascribe our failure, maltreatment, misfortune to external factors while neglecting the
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