The walls of the house where he grew up were thin, yet they carried a kind of silence only poverty could build. It wasn't the silence of peace, nor of contentment, but of absence the absence of laughter echoing from a television, of music flowing from a radio, of toys clattering against the floor. His childhood was stripped bare of those ordinary pleasures many took for granted. There were no bright plastic cars to push around the sand, no video games to huddle over with friends, no bedtime stories whispered with the aid of cartoons or movies. Instead, his earliest memories were filled with prayers muttered at dawn, the sound of wooden pews at church, and the sighs of his parents as they fought quietly against life's unyielding hardness.
He was a kind-hearted boy, tender by nature, but his kindness grew out of necessity rather than choice. Poverty has a way of shaping character in unusual directions; while some children learned to demand more, he learned to give more even from the little he had. Born and raised in a deeply religious home, he was taught that God was the ultimate provider, and so he prayed with sincerity, his small lips forming words bigger than his understanding. Yet, behind those prayers lived the constant hunger for a different life, a hunger that gnawed not at his belly alone, but at his soul.
School was never an easy path for him. Education, in his world, was not a right but a battle. His parents could barely afford books, and uniforms often came in the form of hand-me-downs patched over and over until the fabric thinned like paper. Sometimes he would walk to school with sandals worn to the bone, each step carrying not just his body but his dream of one day stepping into a future far away from the scarcity that haunted his present. Many times, hunger accompanied him to class, his stomach growling in rhythm with the teacher's chalk against the blackboard. Yet he endured, because he had a vision that went beyond himself.
From childhood, he hustled. He carried loads in markets, sold sachet water under the hot sun, did odd jobs that bruised his palms but strengthened his will. Each naira he made felt like a stone placed in the foundation of his future a future he imagined with stubborn hope. He believed that when he finally grew, when he finally found that elusive "good job" in the city, he would not only rise for himself but also for his family, for his parents who sacrificed so much, and for the many people whose lives crossed his. To him, money was not just for comfort; it was a weapon to break the generational chain of poverty, a torch to light up the path for others, a gift to make the world softer for those around him.
But life, as he would come to understand, is rarely that kind.
His kind heart often betrayed him. He was the sort who put others' needs ahead of his own, who gave out of the little he had, who lent a listening ear, who encouraged when others despaired. He thought goodness would be rewarded, that kindness would be reciprocated. Yet, the world seemed to run on a currency far more material than he could afford. Friends who once leaned on him for strength sometimes outgrew him, leaving him behind in pursuit of wealthier opportunities. Love, too, became a battlefield he never quite conquered.
In a society where relationships were often transactional, his financial emptiness spoke louder than his character. Many women could not cope with his lack; they turned away, sometimes politely, sometimes with scorn. He had love to give deep, steady, loyal love but love without money was a story no one seemed willing to read. The world had taught many women to trade affection for security, and he, broke but perfection-driven, could not blame them. Still, each rejection cut deep, each heartbreak reminding him of the cruel irony: the purer his intentions, the poorer his chances.
Yet, through every disappointment, he refused to lose hope. His faith in serendipity in the sudden, miraculous unfolding of fortune kept him alive. He worked tirelessly, prayed with fire, and carried within him a stubborn belief that one day, somehow, the tides would turn. "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how," he would whisper to himself, quoting the words like armor. That "why" was his vision to lift his parents into rest, to scatter joy into the lives of those around him, to redeem the lost childhood he never had by building a softer world for others.
But for now, he remained a broke perfectionist: a young man with high ideals but empty pockets, a heart overflowing with kindness yet weighed down by lack. His perfection was not in possessions, but in persistence; not in riches, but in resilience. And though the pain of poverty pressed against him like a constant shadow, somewhere within that shadow burned a light faint, trembling, but refusing to die.