His decision to enrol in school in September 2011 is easily the most important one he has taken in his life. It has done (and will still do) for him what all the other decisions he took over the years could not. He wanted to overcome his educational handicap, which most advanced elders of his age would simply ignore. Some crooked younger educated elements in his oil_producing Ologoama community had, for long, hoodwinked and cheated him because of his inability to read and write. He tells the story:
“As one of the elders of the community, if people bring documents for me to sign, I will be shown where they put my name for me to thumbprint and they will tell me how much money they brought to our community, you know we are an oil community.
Sometimes too, people will come and meet me and say that the community has collected XYZ amount of money and when I say I am not aware, they would tell me that I am not saying the truth because my thumbprint is on the paper, showing that we have collected the money.
“Also, people will come and tell me that the community was paid N50, 000 and may be the amount is more than that and because I did not go to school, I don’t know what is written on the paper. In fact, the oil company brings money to the community and what some of the youths tell me is different from what was actually paid to us, so I decided to go to school to be able to write my name and sign my signature and also to know what was actually paid to the community, not small boys coming to blindfold me at my age because I did not go to school”.
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