Solomon King

I woke up with a cold. Since I became a Bolt driver I had been a bit worried about how my first driving experience would be. I had imagined one thousand ways it could go wrong- police palaver, crazy passengers, wrong direction, engine knocking, road accidents, I thought of everything. Everything except me sneezing behind the wheels. I would have just cancelled my plan for the day and stayed at home but that would have meant another wasted day. So I made up my mind to face my fears and shame the cold. I went to Oluyole Estate to pick a lady going to the airport. On my way to pick her I was just fine, though the weather was cold I winded down all the glasses so the fresh air could fill up the car. By the time I got to her house, I was almost perfectly okay. I had to wait for about ten minutes before she came out fully decked in all the rainbow colours. She was a sight to behold. This woman was so thin I was afraid she would collapse from the exertion of opening the car ...

I wanted to be a scientist so I went to school. I dreamed of having my laboratory and discovering permanent cures to terrible diseases like sickle cell anaemia and cancer, so I took my education very seriously. I have a university degree from a prestigious federal university for that matter, but Nigeria happened to me. I had big dreams, I wanted to change the world. But dreams don't come to pass overnight. For those of us privileged to be born with chewing sticks in our mouths (never seen a silver spoon in my life), it is usually a long walk to freedom. I completed NYSC about a year ago with high hopes and for the past twelve months, I have lived entirely on hope. It has not been easy. The first two months after NYSC, I spent my hopes lavishly applying to big international humanitarian agencies like WHO, UNICEF, Save the Child, all of them. I got no response but my hope balance was still huge so I shifted to big international financial institutions like PwC, ...