Nigerian Man Who Hawked As A Child Bags Fully-Funded Ph.D. Worth $1.5M At The University Of Iowa, USA

Nigerian man named Ugochukwu Madu with X handle @UgochukwuCFR has responded to a trending tweets, what’s your backstory?

The young man went down memory lane remembering hards days growing up and how he has now evolved in his career.

Read his post as shared on X:

“I grew up in the Tiv-speaking part of Benue state, Nigeria. I can’t think of any legitimate business that my parents haven’t done just to take care of my siblings and I.

Dad went from owning a bread bakery to pharmacy to timber shop to selling building materials to NOTHING.

Mum sold fried fish, akara (bean cake), doughnuts (Tivs call it cake), mama-put (rice, stew, kpomo, fish, beef, swallow, and soup) by the roadside. She’d fry and we the kids would carry them on our heads hawking all over the streets. We also hawked local brooms, cold “pure water” (sachet water), cold minerals (soda). Anything that she thinks would make her more money, she’d start and we the children would do the hawking
My siblings and I were always going late to school because we had to assist with sales, and most days, we left school before closure and avoided evening lessons to go hawking.

Regardless, we were some of the brightest and most intelligent kids in school. We were all taking first position in class. All of us were prefects, mostly Head Boy and Head Girl (senior prefects).

I dreamed of attending a good high school but ended up in a community secondary school because my parents couldn’t afford sending me to a prestigious high school.

After my siblings graduated from high school, there was no money for them to further. One day, an old friend assisted my dad to own a cold room (frozen
food) business. He got back on his feet financially and asked everyone to buy JAMB forms and go to school, except one of my brothers who was already learning a skill.

I was still in the community secondary school then. Dad asked me to go seek admission into SSS1 in any school of my choice. Bristow was my most preferred but they said they only admit students into JSS1, not SSS1. So, I went to St. Andrew’s Secondary School, Adikpo (SASSA) – an all-boys Catholic mission boarding school. They had already conducted 3 entrance exams, and I participated in the 4th intake exam.

We were over a hundred that sat for the exam and participated in the interview, and I was among the less than 5 who were admitted. That’s the moment I realized I was an above average student.

Graduated from SASSA and couldn’t get admission into my preferred universities (UNN and Unizik). Nigerian Gen X and Millennials know how difficult admissions were back then. So, I decided to go to a polytechnic for my national diploma (OSISATECH Poly, Enugu). Having bagged a Distinction in Mass Communication, I got a Direct Entry (DE) admission to study Mass Communication at Ebonyi State University via merit list.

I will not go into details on how difficult it was to finance my studies, how my older brother sold an expensive equipment he uses for his craft to see me through, and how some lecturers teamed up to rip me off my well-deserved First-Class degree but failed by the grace of Chukwu Okike Abiama (God).

Despite my poverty-rooted beginnings and struggles, I never gave up on one thing – and that is ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE. I took first position throughout primary and high school, was the overall best graduating pupil in primary school and bagged about 7 awards. I was the Head Boy (senior prefect) – a meritorious appointment. Bagged Distinction and First Class from my national diploma and bachelor’s respectively.

Today, with the help of hard work, persistence, patience, and God’s grace, I’m doing a fully-funded Ph.D. in Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of Iowa, USA – the nation’s first university to offer a Ph.D. program in this field.

I chose the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication after bagging 6 fully-funded scholarships in American universities
that cumulatively worth over $1.5 million in awarded funding.

I recently passed my Ph.D. Qualifying Exam.

I’m on a journey to global relevance and I’m just getting started.

This is my backstory.
This is who I am.

To God be the glory”.

View post on X:

Source: Ugochukwu Madu| X

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com