Family Poverty: the way out in Nigeria

There are a lot of things that can go wrong when somebody is born into a poor family, I can say this because I have experienced it first hand, there are categories of poverty, I will enumerate some of my experience when I was growing up, so you will know what I am talking about when I say poverty is everywhere in Nigeria and a lot can go wrong in a man’s life if you do not fight poverty.

I grew up in a family of 12, 4 boys and 6 girls, my father was a primary school teacher and my mother was a trade and subsistence farmer, growing up we didn’t have much and obviously didn’t get all we needed, but the love and unity in my family kept us together as one and we overlooked a lot of things that could have gone wrong. My father’s love for education and my mother’s love for hard-work kept the whole family on their toes and always innovating on how to improve things. Every member of the family had a sense of belonging and contribution.

Here I am going to be outlining some of the ways we overcame abject poverty and saw ourselves to the middle class family by Nigerian Standards.

These are steps and ways you can take as a family in poverty, and these are what you need to imbibe to over some of the challenges you may face as families, these steps may not apply to you and your family but they really worked for my family when growing up, because my family lacked everything and we were in poverty in the early days of my life, anybody who has experienced “lack” and anybody who has been referred to as being poor may relate to these points one way or the other.

1)      Education; love for education is the surest way for any family wishing to get out of poverty, and out of life of penury, now no matter how poor a family may be in Nigeria today, they must be able to afford basic education, primary and secondary education is a must, this is so because it is basically free of charge, I am not sure whether there is any state in the country where primary school fee is more than 500 hundred naira, throughout my primary school and secondary school, I never paid school fees, even when the government demanded it, I never paid, but I never failed to appear in class every day, today almost all states in Nigeria offer free education, so my advice to you is to embrace these opportunity, the quality of education in these states maybe poor but self-efforts and motivation will make the difference, because when you have education, you can talk to anybody and you can go anywhere and make your case. Endeavor to give your kids the basic education no matter how poor, encourage them to further if possible, because as a father your kids maybe the only chance you have got to get of poverty, so encourage them to get basic education no matter how poor our schools maybe.

2)      Love for hard: when I started I said my mother was a workaholic, she was always working and I never saw my mother being lazy, I imbibed this quality and even when I failed, I kept going, I never gave up and I never relaxed, I will work hard until I got what I wanted,  as a family in poverty, there is no room for laziness, you should always engage yourself in doing something to bring you and your family out of poverty, there may be times when there seems not to be hope in anything you do, and you may be discouraged to give up, but my advice is instead of giving up, you should fire up and keep working until you see the light.  My mother always encouraged her kids to embrace hard work, in school and on the farm; there were no room for laziness in the family.

3)      Love for family:  Love in a family weather rich or poor is an important factor, and could be a catalyst for progress in anything that they engage in; this factor is most needed when the family is in poverty, the love for one another and the care for one another may be the extra string that hold the bonds of unity and keeps all of you together when things seems to be on the edge. Let me give you an example with my family, when we were growing up, we all eat together in a very big plate, every member of the family eat, nobody was exempted from the eating ground, literally, we supported each other and we prayed together, when one member of the family was in pain, it felt like the whole was in pain, and the truth is that the whole family felt such pains, we were like that even till now. Love in a family is very important especially when there isn’t enough in that home.

4)      Cooperation:  Love for cooperation is another major factor, In my family in those days, some of my sisters and brother suspended their personally dreams so as to assist some other to finish their college education, they gave all their money and other dreams just to help a brother to go to the university. These are decision that never favored them personally but they cooperated and stayed with the once in school both in prayer and emotional support. They worked in the village while others went to school in the cities just to bring the family out of poverty. I really cannot figure what to call this kind of sacrifice/cooperation.

5)      Prayers: For those of us that are religious, please always pray, I know some will not believe in prayers but trust me, it works, riches and wealth only comes from God, so my advice is to pray for each other’s success,  I will even advice you to pray more for your brothers and sisters to succeed, because God will eventually bless you more, when you pray for others, I have experienced these facts first hand, I will not write about them if they didn’t work for my family. Although we still have a long way to go but things are a lot better, a million times better than when I was growing up. So trust me prayers works.

In my short experiences in family life in poverty, all the factors stated above were some of the things my family practice, and today we are better off. Never give up, this may sound easier than done but never give up, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, never stop dreaming no matter how big your dreams may be, keep dreaming and work towards your dreams. Show love and kindness to your brothers and sisters; don’t stop cooperating with each other and never stop praying for God’s interventions.

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