Joyce Ugbosu is not your average woman by any standard. Her fetching but smallish frame belies a mind of steel, one which had helped her to...
Joyce Ugbosu is not your average woman by any standard. Her fetching but smallish frame belies a mind of steel, one which had helped her to work her way out from the ‘dark dungeon’ that her life had once been, to use her own language.
In Back Against the Wall, her newly published mini autobiography to coincide with her 43rd birthday, she tells the stunning tale of how one terrible event changed her life for the worse, and how she became a very successful tech entrepreneur, philanthropist, and businesswoman.
It is most unusual to be writing an autobiography at your age. What about your story do you think would interest people?
These are very tough times and people are really going through stuff. Once they read the book it will give them hope. It was all about my dad. He was the person I looked up to when I was a child.
He was a banker and very intelligent. When he got back from work he would ask us to get our pens and be writing all sorts of current affairs, even Samuel Doe- this was 1989 and I used to think, why is this man disturbing me?
He was murdered.
Luckily he built a house, if not I don’t know what we would have done. 12 children! Almost everything went bad, God just kept us alive. When I saw my mum as a woman I took a decision that I would not depend on any man. I was going to work very hard.
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There was nothing she did not go through just to put food on the table but because of the number of children… I had to drop from boarding house, trek long distances, go to school, and come back with an empty stomach. We had this small farm around, picked snails, looked for garri- anything.
We were normal children until life happened to us. Some of my siblings have not recovered. We can’t be crying “how I wish Papa dey alive” all our lives. He worked hard, helped people. He was moving around.
Before he died he promised to train me, send me abroad because I was very brilliant. When he died I started following bad friends. One day I just packed my load from Science to Art class. I followed my friends and that was how I left school with 2 credits- in CRS and History.
When I went to get my results one of my teachers said, “2 credits? Your daddy will turn in his grave”. She said she was sure I would become a tomato seller.
I got home and started crying. I realized I was the problem. I was doing any job I saw just so that I would help bring food to the table. I saved for GCE and that is why I got the mantra to teens I mentor: God gave everybody brain, it just depends on our ability to use it.
I got admission to the University of Port Harcourt but there was nobody to pay the fees and I suffered to get that admission. Two years later, someone saw me and said you are still not in school? Don’t tell me there is no money. I think you should go to a polytechnic.
One lecturer helped me to work NYSC to Lagos, went to NPA. My boss in NPA was reading a newspaper where they wrote that there was an ICT company that would give 5 people a job is you did a course with them.
I had neither papa nor mama, why not enroll. Where I was staying they asked me to leave so I found one place. They allowed me to pay in installments. I was amongst the 5.
They did not pay me much- Indians, but the experience I got is what I am working with today. The reality began to change. Hard work pays, not connection.
I have heard of men with stories like yours but not women. How were you able to resist the temptation of just following some rich men to care for you?
I realized that fulfillment is not money. Success is when you are in the centre of God’s will for your life. What did they not introduce me to? Cultism Igbo (marijuana) smoking… if not for the values I had. “Come, let’s go for runs”
So how did you keep from being distracted?
I was very distracted. That is how I ended up with two credits. But after that, you became hardworking and always distinguished yourself, according to your book…
To me, it’s a thing of the mind. Driving force number one- someone already called me a tomato seller. The voice would always come, “do you want to be a tomato seller? Do you want to end up in prison? That is why values are important when children are young. Pikin wen wan bad go bad- I am from Delta state.
But it helps. It’s not as if I did not follow boys, do other things that young people do but something kept drawing me back. The opportunities arose. “Let’s go to Bonny. They will give us a so-so amount”.
I would prepare it. When it’s time to go, I would say, “don’t worry you people should go”. And one of the things I noticed about myself is that anything I do, I do it best so if I wanted to be a cultist I would have been the main killer.
They disturbed my life but they would say, “leave that one, e be like say she no get heart”.
A lot of children don’t even know what they are getting into. They just follow their friends. When I was following bad girls I knew somewhere in my heart that what we were doing was bad. Today now, you can’t compare us. I lived in a home where all the doors were open- if you want to fly, fly; if you want to get lost, get lost. But I advised myself and it also helped my siblings.
There are so many cases these days of child sexual molestation. Did you experience such or sexual harassment in the workplace?
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I have. People that wanted to help me; even relatives. It was that bad. That is why I always had petty things that I was doing. When you hear people say they don’t have anybody to help them, it’s because they are sitting down. There was nothing I did not do: housegirl, photography, canteen…just anywhere I could eat and bring something home. That is how I guarded against such things. My profession is male-dominated. You know how men work. When one is done they will pass you to the next one. For how much? This money that men give to women, why can I not make it myself? To young girls- your money is not in any man’s hand. Men come to me for money.
With your petite stature, do people not underrate you when you enter a place?
I went for a course in Lagos Business School last year; I became president in an unprecedented manner. When I entered it was like, this one cannot win. The people with big bodies and everything, they came out and gave their manifesto. When it came to my turn I came out and told them all I have known in my life is just to serve and if you want a servant leader, I am the one to pick. Everybody started clapping.
The post I didn’t want to be a pepper seller — Joyce Ugbosu appeared first on Vanguard News.
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