At age 4, I suffered from meningitis which was a result of heat (one of the negative effects of climate change. According to my mum, I was taken to a general hospital in the local community where we stayed and almost all the doctors couldn’t do anything about it because they felt it was an extreme case of meningitis. I was referred to another hospital in a neighboring community where the resident doctors advised my mum to take me home instead of wasting her effort and stressing herself on a child who is almost gone. The love my mother has for me made her refuse to take me home. After several hours of staying and pleading, one of the student doctors approached her and offered to help. He ensured that I was re-admitted and he administered some form of alternative treatments which helped me recovered speedily. I can’t over-emphasize the number of injections I was given but it was worth it.
17 years later, I was in my final year and about to graduate from college when I came across an essay contest online tagged: Nigeria Climate Contest. We were required to write an essay concerning our personal experiences on the effects of climate change in our environments. I opted in without much hope and submitted an entry. I wasn’t really expecting any positive feedback because of the limited time I had to develop/come up with the essay. Surprisingly, I got a congratulatory message 2 weeks after. The mail stated that my essay was chosen as one of the two winning essays and I was entitled to an all-expenses-paid trip to Abuja (the capital city of Nigeria), free accommodation, feeding, and cash remuneration. I couldn’t explain how happy I was considering the limited time I had to submit the essay which got me my first flight experience. Since I was a child, I have always fantasized about how splendid it would be to fly in a plane. And now the dream has come to a reality with all expenses paid.
I went to Abuja to take part in the National climate march towards the government house and the presidential villa. The essence of the march was to bring to the notice of the lawmakers the urgency of making and signing a climate law. I was privileged to share my climate change experience with over 50 climatters and environmentalists. This experience built my passion for climate advocacy and so I was nominated to attend a world climate simulation training which of course served as an avenue for me to know more about my newly found love (Climate Change). I came out of the training filled with ideas and innovations. I decided to do something.
Shortly after the World Climate Simulation training I attended, I went into research and I realized that a lot of people are suffering from the effects of climate change all over the world, from flood to erosion, to high sea level, to heat and to other diseases like meningitis. In the Northern part of Nigeria (Sub-Sahara Africa), a lot of children die from meningitis and other diseases that are caused by climate change. A lot of people lost their houses to flood and a lot of farmers lost their products to lack of rain. All of these added together made me launch an NGO named (TAD Initiative) which serves as an online sensitization hub for issues relating to climate change, environmental sustainability, and community services and youth empowerment. This serves as a platform where a lot of people are reached through the use of social media platforms, blogs, and websites on how to prevent and combat the effects of climate change in the community.
Business Enthusiasm
I was 14 years old when my father started a small fish farm business to cater to our needs. My brother and i would fetch several buckets of water from our neighbor’s well into my father’s fish pond to keep the fishes alive. We did this up till the 3rd month before the fishes started to die one after the other, due to stress. My father had to sell some of the fishes prematurely to local re-sellers and the rest we gave to a smoked fish sellers to help smoke. We hawked the smoked fishes in nearby communities for a week (after school session).
Ten years later, I'm a business administration graduate and I have worked with a number of small and micro medium enterprises providing business support solutions and NGOs working toward smart cities and a better economy. I believe in a world where everyone has access to the basic amenities of life, where businessmen and women do not have to go through hell to get their businesses running smoothly. A world with gender equality where what applies to a man applies to a woman.