How Young Nigerian Professionals Leverage the Power of Grit and Resilience
By: Joseph Anwana
Tags: Personal Development, Productivity, Nigeria, Inspiration, Careers

How Young Nigerian Professionals Leverage the Power of Grit and Resilience

Photo by Анна Рыжкова from Pexels

I’m a firm believer in what Nigeria has to offer the world in terms of human capital. After all, the nation’s universities and polytechnics produce over 500,000 fresh graduates annually. A lot of these graduates would go on to build solid professional careers both at home and elsewhere.

Nigeria is a country living below its potential as a nation. Even under the prevailing circumstances, the people are extremely resilient, and routinely make something out of nothing.

The reason only negative news about Nigeria grabs all the airtime is that we don’t do so well in telling our own stories.

We need to tell these stories because nobody will do it for us.

While a college graduate elsewhere is spoilt for choice, a typical Nigerian graduate must put up a fistfight against all kinds of obstacles to be established professionally.

I will share a few stories to give you an idea of what an ordinary Nigerian who wishes to rise must overcome. Note that I said, “ordinary Nigerian”. A former president used that phrase anytime he referred to those who have no political connections or rich parents.

If you were not born rich, you need to go the extra mile to earn a place at the table. You need to confront the obstacles radically and aggressively. You need to tenaciously pursue goals without regard for any inherent limitations.

Between a dream and a home

Doxy is a highly sought-after finance professional with a series of international certifications after his name. But it was not always so.

When he arrived in Lagos a few years ago, he had the dream of pursuing a professional certification in accounting. His meager wages as an audit trainee could barely pay for the examinations, training, and his upkeep. He could not afford rent.

He could have abandoned his dream in exchange for a small apartment. But he opted to forgo renting so that all the money could go into the dream.

But there was a problem — where does he sleep at night?

When he got tired of sleeping on benches in classrooms, he found a place inside a local market. A market stall became a 5-star accommodation. The lodging conditions were strict — check-in by 9 pm and check-out by 5 am before the market opens for business.

Miracles still happen. A homeless young man became a chartered accountant and went on to build a great career.

The senior colleague

Ohi moved to Lagos after graduating from a university in Northern Nigeria. He had an uncle in Lagos, so he didn’t expect accommodation to be a problem.

Wrong — the uncle’s wife did not appreciate the inconvenience.

By this time, Ohi had enrolled in an accounting certification training program that ran during the weekends. He was jobless and homeless, but his future depended on becoming a chartered accountant — as quickly as possible.

He struck a deal with the management of the training facility which also hosted a public secondary school. He would keep his few personal belongings in one of the classrooms and use the classroom to study when the kids go home.

It worked! The kids knew they had a senior colleague. His stuff was safe in the classroom.

Ohi passed the professional examinations in record time and won multiple awards in the process. These days, he works as a senior financial analyst and owns a home of his own.

When your goal is 1200 km away

Sunny was lucky to get a job with the bank he worked for during his national youth service year. That means he was spared from experiencing the harsh job market as a fresh graduate. Not a bad start for a young man in Nigeria. But Sunny knew he had to do something to move his career forward. He wanted to become a chartered accountant.

Some of the best training programs for the professional accounting examinations were in Lagos. But he was based in a commercial city in South-Eastern Nigeria, over 600 km from Lagos.

Sunny would board the night bus to Lagos every Friday evening to join the Saturday morning training session. He would make the return trip on Saturday night arriving at his base on Sunday morning.

This went on for as long as it took him to pass the examinations. Sunny received recognition from his employer and promotion for all his troubles.

Sunny knew what he wanted. He knew it would not come by going for a picnic every weekend. He made those 1200 km round trips every weekend over and over until he achieved his goal.

Double glory for double effort

With a degree in Engineering, Bolu knew that his banking career needed a boost. Bolu set out to obtain the Institute of Banking certification while at the same time studying for a major international IT Security certification. The cost of both undertakings was beyond his means, so he took a loan from his employer. The loan raised the stakes for him. How do you fail an examination paid for by Human Resources on loan?

He clearly needed more than 24 hours in a day to pull it off. The strategy was to get to the office by 6 am and read until normal people showed up for work at 8 am. Sometimes, after the close of business, he would bid everyone farewell and continue studying overnight. To support this radical lifestyle, Bolu’s car served as a mobile home complete with clothes, shoes, and books.

The sacrifice paid off — big time. When the result slips rolled in, Bolu got a letter from the CEO for smashing two major professional certification exams at the same time. Bolu is now a top talent in IT Security working for a market-leading firm in Europe.

Loan syndication for examination fees

Yaya had his eyes on an international professional certification before graduating from the university. To motivate himself, he assigned an ambitious timeline to his goal. He wanted to get it done before the end of the national service year.

The only challenge was that his income could not cover the cost of training and examination fees. To solve that problem, he “syndicated” a loan from two colleagues with a commitment to pay up before the end of the national service year. He paid up the final installment of the loan a few days before the end of the service year.

Yaya went home broke after paying up the loans. But he had taken a major step towards achieving his career ambitions.

Stand by for an emergency

Cally and Buki were already employed when they started pursuing international certifications in IT. The lectures for those examinations held every Saturday. The only problem was that they had to be available on Saturdays to handle operational emergencies at work.

Cally was frequently called upon to attend to emergencies. His lecture location was 125 km away from his workplace in another city. He would rush out to attend to the emergency and then go back to the lectures. Sometimes, a call would have ruined the day’s lectures completely.

“I think I was just crazy”, Cally said, reflecting on the experience of rushing from one city to go attend to a work emergency in another city.

Buki on the other hand had to attend the office twice on Saturdays in the morning and later in the evening. She also had to attend lectures on the other side of the city. Buki didn’t have a car which made it more challenging to shuttle from one part of the city to the other. Driving a car may not have been of much help anyway considering Lagos traffic gridlock. She could forget about the lectures because of the inconveniences. But that would have been the end of her dream of becoming a skilled IT professional.

There must be a way out! Buki had to make a dangerous 25 km motorbike ride across the city twice a day every Saturday to perform her role and still attend the lectures.

The risk paid off. That certification gave Buki an opportunity to build the IT career she had always desired.

Keke was not so successful in juggling weekend work with a master’s degree program and a professional IT certification examination. He finally resorted to self-study after excusing himself from the lectures. “My car became a mobile library as I studied before and after work”, Keke said. Keke completed both programs as planned and is now an audit professional working for a large financial services group in Nigeria.

These people were required to stand by (or perhaps stand still), but they found ways to break free from the limitations imposed by their circumstances. It might have been crazy — but it worked.

No exam leave, no problem

Demy was just one of the guys in branch audit of a banking conglomerate. But he desired more for his career. So, he signed up and started studying for a new international certification. His employers did not understand or appreciate the value of this new skill he was trying to acquire. As a result, his request for exam leave was turned down.

Demy took a chance. He flew into Lagos on Friday evening, took the exam on Saturday morning, and showed up at the headquarter office on Monday morning.

Something clicked that Monday morning. Somebody finally listened to his story and bought into the vision. Management asked him to start a new function using the skills he had been learning.

Demy became a pioneer of a new knowledge frontier in the organization and the industry.

It got worse to get better

Rob was preparing for a professional examination under challenging conditions. With no decent accommodation where he could retire after work to study, he resorted to carrying his textbooks and lecture notes with him everywhere he went. He read while riding the then notoriously inconvenient Lagos public bus (molue). He always looked forward to getting stuck in Lagos traffic while on official duties so that he could have more time to read before getting back to the office.

Even with all of that, he wasn’t confident he was prepared for the examinations. So, he applied for two months' leave which was turned down. The small audit firm he was working for could not afford to let an employee go away for two months.

He quit his job so that he could focus on passing the examination. Two years later he ran into his former boss. The man had a few words for him, “you are a strong man”, he said.

Indeed, Rob is having a rewarding career holding forth like a strong man in the audit department of one of the largest banks in the country. It all started with the courage to walk away from his job to focus on preparing for his professional examinations.

Final thoughts

Nigerian professionals smash local and international professional examinations every year under incredibly challenging conditions. But the world does not get to hear these inspiring stories of grit and determination.

The stories we have shared here are not isolated cases. There are probably more grueling tales out there. Stories of people who camp out in the so-called study centers every weekend and still show up at work on Monday morning. People lose vital relationships because of spending a crazy amount of time pursuing this dream that requires so much sacrifice of time and money.

There are people who sacrificed their entire youth trying to achieve their dreams. I know many who were already chartered accountants before they graduated from university. Such folks may have missed hours of football games, soap operas, and quality time with friends.

The common theme in all these stories is discipline and determination. It’s that “crazy” drive to overcome obstacles. It’s the tenacity to stick to a grueling process until the goal is achieved. It’s the mental strength to take on challenges and break new grounds.

Also, it’s important to add that most of these people were aiming to achieve feats that probably nobody in their families had ever attained. There had no shoulder to stand on. Most of them had no mentor to model or look up to — they were self-motivated groundbreakers.

Such sterling qualities don’t disappear after acquiring the certifications. The individual takes them into the workplace and their employers get double value for their money.

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