Move Out, Move On - Eke van Victor

Non-Fictions on Sundays

A couple of years ago, I was fresh out of secondary school with seemingly shattered dreams. It was a very terrible moment for me as I had bagged 'not-too-good-enough' O' level results coupled with the fact that my family's economy was at its lowest point in those days. I was left with no choice than to put my useless self into profitable use.

I found out about a vacancy in a factory that produced sachet, table and dispenser water. They needed factory workers and I wasted no time in applying. I remember taking the application letter in just a sheet of paper to the supervisor and how he sent me out to go envelope it and make it look more appropriate. I knew the right thing to do but thought enveloping the letter was a bigger protocol than what the job actually deserved.

On my first day at work, I made the first big mistake. I was told I wasn't accepted as a factory worker but as a motorboy and that the factory work was only for the ladies in the company. I felt my heart beat twice faster for a while and then it probably stopped for a moment. I could have just walked out and said I was no longer interested because, to me it was not better than hawking on the streets. I thought of home, I thought of my friends who were leaving me at home getting N5000 jobs here and there. And above all, I thought of myself and how badly I needed to get out of my comfort zone. So, I dived in instead and took up the challenge.

Every morning we would load all the trucks for hours till they were filled and good enough to hit the roads. It was a task I learned to complete in a couple of minutes by lifting four bags of pure water or three packs of table water or even two filled water dispenser cans with my hands at a time from the store to the vehicles.

I wished loading the vehicles was even the herculean part of the daily task. In contrast, it was like a rehearsal compared to what we faced on the streets. The driver who was most times our boss (owner of the company) would stop over at every shop in this world to do deliveries; of course we were always going to get down to offload and deliver. We would deliver dispenser cans of water to virtually every bank in the Ikorodu-Lagos road axis. The worst part was even delivering at the 2 (or 3) storey FIRS building in Ikorodu. Mehhnnn that building was damn tall. We would lift two cans till we got to the last floor doing like two to three turns each on each occassion we visited. The bad thing about following the boss was that we could follow him on those trips from 7am till 12midnight, he would never stop to get us even 5naira biscuit to eat. The leaking sachets of water were our lunch on many of those days and we'd be sure to drink as much as we could so we didn't pass out.

There was this young man who was my partner (a co-motorboy), brief in height and dark in complexion. He was always on an unending 21day Marathon vigil at church. I was always shocked to see him arrive earlier than me. His english alone always made me doubt if he ever completed prmary six. While directing or navigating the driver to keep moving back when trying to reverse, he'll be like "Be coming, Be coming, Be coming, Just Be coming laidat" and I'll just like that whatsapp emoji put my hand on my face in frustration. Whenever I saw him, I saw the average talented Nigerian youth injured on the psychological streets of his childhood. Nothing he did wrongly was ever his fault. We were pushed to the streets and it was never our faults.

One bad thing about the streets is that; when you get into it, it will always find a way to pull you in and get into you in return. It is a symbiotic relationship and it was not different in my case. I remember delivering 5 and half bags of sachet water secretly to a customer without delivering the money (N350 or thereabout) to the boss. I recall how tensed I was during that period. I think I later returned the money out of fear but I'm not too sure about that today.

Two weeks passed by slowly and it was pay day for my colleagues, a new year eve. I was skeptical about whether I was going to get paid since I had joined halfway into the month. We sat outside as they called names one after the other handing them money in brown envelopes. It was my turn to go collect but there was no envelope in sight. The supervisor deeped his hand into his pocket and brought out some pieces of cash, counted it and handed it to me. To be honest, that salary had virtually every single denomination of the naira (except one thousand) in it. I counted; Two thousand, three hundred and thirty-five naira (N2335). It was my first ever salary and I was balling home for the New Year. For a 16 year old boy, I was living the dream. But deep down, I knew it was gold-plated suffering. Though I never wanted to think of it that way. Positive vibes only!

In the turn of the year, I made a vow never to set my foot into that factory anymore. And just like I do in every single place I've ever worked, I moved out and moved on with my life. In fact, I have come to realize that my life is a constant progression of events. Every place I have ever been has always been a million times better than the previous place I was. Its nothing but God unravling my life in phases and doses.

I have always been of the opinion that life is a ladder and if you ever miss a step, you'll come back later on in life to walk that step. Unfortunately many young people today do not want to walk those steps, but I'm not too quick to judge because its certain they'll pay that bill later on in life. That is not even the center of the problem in this my story, the problem is that many Nigerians (especially Lagosians) claim to be hustling to get money today, but the truth is that more than 98% of them who claim to be hustling are actually just suffering. There is a thin line between the two. When you're suffering, you only feel like a man at the end of the month and like a less-privileged the rest of the following month till payday again and the cycle goes on and on. Suffering has no substantial dividends but hustling does.

Suffering or hustling; any way, none is even good for you as a person. Instead, turn your life over to your God the only one in whom we have assurance. Let Him unravel your life in the right phases, let Him walk you through whatever storm you're stuck in right now and take you to the next level of your life. Remember that if you have been stuck in an unpleasant situation for too long, it's not God's will for your life, all you need to do is MOVE OUT & MOVE ON to greater things.

Keep Growing, Keep Glowing!