A teacher in the Department of European Languages and Integration Studies at the University of Lagos, Dr Adewale Tiamiyu, has shared how he became a butcher in Ivory Coast.
The educator explained that after his poor O'level exam results where he had an F9 parallel, he gave up on schooling and left for the West African country.
“I went to check my result and it was F9 parallel. So I lost hope. Though I later sat for the GCE examination, it wasn’t successful, because I did not have the English language. I tried the examination twice and I had E8 in the language. So I abandoned education in 1990. Between 1990 to 1995, I was in Ivory Coast as a meat seller,” he told Saturday PUNCH.
He also revealed that he decided to travel to the United States from Ivory Coast but things quickly turned ugly and was left disappointed.
“I had intended to go to the USA from Ivory Coast. But when I got to Abidjan, I was disappointed with what I saw. I regretted traveling out. And even now, the phobia is still in me as I don’t want to travel out. Even if they are calling me in the same USA now, I already have that phobia that I don’t want to go and suffer anywhere in the world,” he revealed.
On how he ended up a meat seller while nursing the American dream, Tiamiyu stated that was the only available job as he couldn’t present any evidence he attended secondary school to get a teaching job.
He further narrated that though he could have returned to Nigeria, he was afraid of returning to his then-girlfriend without traveling to the US.
He, however, returned in 1995, sat for GCE, passed, and gained admission to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State in 1997.
He said he learnt from his failed goose chase to the Ivory Coast that the only way to a good life was education.
“I had promised my girlfriend that I would come back to take her to the United States. So that shame of failing to make it to the United States caught me. That was why I decided to stay back in the French country to work and gather money.
“I invested the money in the business of selling rice, potatoes, and onions but the business collapsed. So I had to come back to Nigeria in 1995 to pursue education.
“I took that decision because I discovered that if one does not go to school or has money, one can’t belong to any serious class in society. And since I had pursued money and couldn’t get it, I felt the only way left for me to have class in life was to go back to school,” he said.
He added that while in Ivory Coast, he became a good speaker of French, the country’s lingua franca.
This is in addition to eight other languages he could speak fluently.
“Being a Yoruba man, I speak Yoruba. But when I was in Ivory Coast during those five years, I spoke Jula, the local language that they speak in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Senegal. It is their lingua Franca. I was able to speak it because I worked with the natives in the French country.
“But I also learned French in the country while selling meat. I bought French grammar books and read everything. I didn’t know that through the readings, I was improving my intelligence. It was when I got back to Nigeria that I discovered I had improved,” he concluded.
Read the entire interview here.
