60-year-old dropout and wheelbarrow pusher, heads back to school in Delta State

Adalabu Seribor, is now a JSS II) student at Izon College, Bomadi-Overside, Delta State. While giving reasons for his decision, he said, “I decided to go to school because I perpetually feel the pain of being an illiterate in this modern world where everything has to do with English and education.

My mother died during child birth when I was a little boy while my father was a hunter. I went through pains and hardship at my tender age to adulthood. I went through struggles all through my life history. 

I had the opportunity to go to school at my young age, when a relative who was a magistrate in Bayelsa State took me to his house. But because of early morning beatings due to my failure to greet him when rising from bed, I went back to my father.

I continued in hard labour to survive in life, which I am still doing. I realized that without education, one cannot do well in this present society. I also do not want a situation whereby someone else would interpret or write for me if eventually I am chosen to hold an office in my community.

I make a living by pushing wheelbarrow. After school hours, I go back home to look for work to do, which I have been doing for a living. I pay my school fees from there. I am determined to complete my education because of the pains in my heart. I do various menial jobs for a living.

I pack dirt from gutters; I pack sand, clear grasses in people’s compounds and pack soak-away faeces in the dead of the night. By the grace of God, I will finish from this school. I will then proceed to Teachers’ Training College. I want to teach and I advised young boys and girls wasting their time and years roaming the streets to go to school.

If I can go to school, then why are young people wasting themselves.” His class teacher, Edsemi Anesah, described him as a committed and hardworking student., adding that: “He is the oldest student in the school and I advise young people out there to emulate him.”…. n nt d ‘skiboroboskibo’ monger…. Cc: Vanguradngr, Punchng