while some are have to go through so much of the rigors of life for
regular day to day upkeep.For John Okafor(Mr Ibu),things weren't too
rosy at the beginning and had to go through so much agony before
attaining the success he has today.
The big part of his suffering was attributed to the background he came
out from as he said that his family was the poorest in his
hometown;''When I lost my father,breeze pulled down our house and we
became tenants in our own village.We were eight in number;five men and
three women.We were given a room in our maternal home;there we all
slept at night as if we were in a cell.One leg here, the other leg
there! (laughs).Once you are poor you are poor.You will be forced to
see so many things from another angle. My father stopped training me
when I was still very small. He died in 1975.
That was how we became fathers to each other and to our mum. I was
training myself in secondary school. I was doing all sorts of odd
jobs.I sold fire wood, I did hair dressing, I was assembling wooden
crates of minerals, I was involved in the snapping of wait-and-take
pictures.
I was a butcher; if you want to killa goat, cow, pig, etc, I would do
it for you, cut it to your desired sizes, and take it to your place.
That was how I was surviving. It was from those petty jobs that I got
money to see myself through school. My elder brother later came in
when he began earning money.
When I was picking up my admission form to study Mass Communication at
the Institute of Management and Technology,IMT,Enugu, my brother told
me to choose part time, because it was going to be hard if I should
enter full time. There was no time for rest because it was struggle
all through;struggle to go to school and struggle to feed ourselves
and family.
