THIS IS NOT MY CHILD!

I remember while growing up, I had no idea my parents paid rent or school fees or even collected my result from school. I mean, I had no idea what position I was in class. I just knew that when the new session begins, I'd be moving to the next class.

I think all that changed when we relocated from Rivers State to Bayelsa state.

I remember the first time my mother came to get my result from my class teacher after my first term in school and I was at the bottom of the class. My mother looked at the result and looked at the teacher and said "this is not my child".

I realize, now that I'm older, that in Rivers state I was at the top of my class, and then the move to Bayelsa ruined me. The teachers never paid me any attention, they didn't take sitting arrangements into consideration so I was sent to the back of the class where people ahead of me were taller and I had eye defects that no one knew about until much later.

I failed and was set among the dumb kids of the class. It was crazy!

So, when my mom picked up my result and screamed at my teachers at how lousy they were, she took my education into her hands.

She paid for extra, extra lessons. I mean the school made extra lessons compulsory, so she paid for extra 2 hours again. Just to get my grades up. Funny thing is, these teachers took the money but let us play all through those hours. I LOVED IT!!

I was getting pretty dumb. So my mom took me aside and did what she had to do with me. She homeschooled me. And believe it, I made it to the top of my class.

I later knew my problems were from the school, and not me, when I represented my school later on in the Cowbell Mathematics competition. I competed against the really smart kids who topped my class those years, and I dusted their asses on the charts.

That's when I realized; I'm pretty smart.