Dream

By Sukurat Adenike Adelodun

To have a dream is not a waste of time. Even if it appears unrealistic or being redirected by unforeseen circumstances, just like Nike dreamt of a perfect future for herself before trial twisted it otherwise, it never means you would not achieve your dream if exert consistency, focus and dedication.

Nike is the first child of her mother’s 6 children, and 13th of a polygamous family of 14 children. Though, she had the best that life could offer her as a child and shared intimate friendship with her aged father. As prominent in her culture, last child of a family gets best care from both parents and which does not exclude older members of the family, but death snatched her best friend (father) when she was 9.

Nike had lived in better days, tasted flavour that God offered at its rosy moment and for someone who was brought up with a silver spoon, and had to live without same spoon, there must be someone who understood that episode of life, to explain to the little girl whose knowledge was yet to develop.

She met Tunji at the age of 21 when she was attending a Computer School prior to her admission into Tertiary Institution. They started dating and within a year, she got pregnant for Tunji. It took her a while before she got to know that she was pregnant, consequent to the continuation of her menstrual flow. Tunji’s denial of being responsible for the pregnancy left Nike’s mother seriously heartbroken, which resulted into Nike’s several failed attempts to abort the pregnancy.

Her pregnancy coincided with a Provisional Admission Offer to study Mass Communication at a Nigerian Polytechnic. What a blessing in disguise! When she received a divine favour from the school’s Director of Part-Time Studies who paid for her tuition and as well registered her for antenatal at a General Hospital around the school. Few months later, she delivered a beautiful baby girl who was kept with the School’s Clinic Nanny whenever Nike was to attend classes – an initiative of the Director and the School Clinic’s Matron.

Nike revisited her childhood dream of becoming a well-to-do individual, thus, graduated with a Pass and was awarded a Certificate in Ordinary National Diploma (OND), but got more determined to make a good grade when she enrolled for Higher National Diploma (HND) and came out with a Lower Credit with 3.99GPA. Nike got an opportunity to work with a specialized Media Firm and that was how she began the journey into Media industry.

While going on with the profession she used her experience of being a single mother at a young age to talk to young people of her age and those younger, and, most of them listen and turned a new leaf. This motivated her to focus more on community service by counselling young people and also contributing her quota to develop her community through volunteer activities with some NGOs within the country, Nike was also selected as the Coordinator of West for an NGO called WholeWomanNetwork.
Her zeal, quest for knowledge and interest in the Social Media has helped to open door of great opportunities to meet great people who contributed to her success and those who encourage and believe in what she does.

Recently, owing to her life experience and passion for community development, Nike was amongst the selected 35 Nigerians and 105 West African Young Leaders for YALI Cohort 3 of the US President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) where she was trained on Civic Society and Leadership at the Regional Leadership Centre, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA, Accra. Nike’s passion for Community Development and Human Investment gave birth to Future for Future Initiatives (FFI) – an NGO saddled with the responsibility of impacting positively on young people through education, empowerment and environmental health awareness creation.

Today, Nike is happily married and blessed with a set of twin.