Nneka Asogwa, a young female graduate of Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Nigeria Nsuka, currently works as a reporter with THE WHISTLER Newspaper in Abuja.
Ms Asogwa started fending for herself at an early age due to family challenges, leaving her parent’s house in Enugu State at just eight years to work as domestic help in Anambra State.
In this interview with THE WHISTLER, she reveals her childhood struggles and how she started farming to send herself to school and build a house for her parents.
Excerpts:
Can you tell us a bit about your upbringing?
My upbringing was very complicated and a heart breaking one. I was born into a polygamous family, forth child in the family and second child on my mother’s side. I didn’t grow up with my parents. The toxic nature of the family left me with the option of becoming a house help to a family at Nnobi, Anambra State at the age of eight. As at the time, my mother was not in her marriage, and my step mother and her children were maltreating me and my siblings. So, that compelled my father to send us out to do house help with the aim to save us from the maltreatment of our step mother and her children.
For me, leaving my house for house help in Anambra was like going from frying pan to fire. I was mercilessly maltreated, bullied, humiliated, and literally deprived of so many opportunities in life. But thank God I survived all and I am still living today.
I left Anambra nine years later to Lagos for another house help work. I lost my father while in Lagos. Five years after I lost my father, my mother died too. By then I was back home and done with secondary school education.
After my secondary education I took a nanny job at Enugu so as to secure money for my higher education, but was not favoured. Mother died while I was in the job. Again, I was owed for eight months and the money was never paid. So, I had to leave the job, went home and that was when the thought of farming came into my mind. Mother has left me with her responsibilities and with nothing to thrive on. I had my younger ones and myself to take care of. So, I had to look for bigger source of income.
So how did you go about the farming and what type of farming did you venture into?
At first it was a very tough decision for me, I had nothing to start with. I almost got demoralized. I ventured into vegetable farming, which included yellow pepper (the popular ‘Ose Nsukka’), garden egg, (the green specie) and tomatoes. Those were the popular farming in my village. I met a close friend who was into the farming and pleaded with her to lend me some seeds from her crop, she agreed.
For manure, somebody was supplying poultry manure to my mother when she was alive to sell for him and in return, he paid her back with some bags of manure depending on how many trailer loads she sold. So, I pleaded with him to allow me continue the selling, he agreed and from that time, I was able to get manure that I used for my own farming and also sold some, used the money to pay labourers that cultivated the farm land.
I started small because you need money to do farming on a big scale so as to have a bountiful harvest. I combined my little farming with working for others on their farms and getting paid so as to meet our daily needs. I started with only garden egg. It turned out well to the quantity I cultivated, and that gave me the courage to go higher the next year.
I had to beg for land from people that have more than enough which was a norm, and luckily, I got from different people. The next year I did both yellow pepper, garden egg, and tomatoes, and even combined it with pumpkin, cucumber and cassava. They all turned out very well and I made massive income. I did the farming for four years before I got admission into the Federal polytechnic Idah, Kogi State to study Food Science and Technology.
A year before my admission, we had started building a house to have a shelter of our own, because, all these whiles, we were living with someone. So, before I started school, the house had gotten to a state where we could live in it, so we moved in and continued with the remaining. My siblings continued with the farming while I was in school.
Two years after, I was done with OND and returned home for the one-year compulsory Industrial Training. While in the training, I continued with the farming but not as big as before.
Upon planning to go back for HND, some good friends advised that I go for Direct Entry into university instead. I doubted it at first, but later decided to go for it. God so kind, it worked out and I was offered admission to study Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. At that point I didn’t continue with the farming again.
What were the challenges you faced with farming?
Yes, very much of it. There were forces from many angles to push me out of the farming. But I thanked God for my resilience. There were conspiracies to ensure the manure supplier didn’t supply me manure.
Again, two of the people that gave me land revoked their lands without prior information. Even, on one of the lands I had cassava of five months. The owner asked me to remove everything that he wanted to cultivate on the land. I couldn’t refuse.
Another was debt, one of my customers disappeared with my money, N280,000. This happened in 2012, you can imagine the value that time. Then, I don’t go to market to sell my farm products, the buyers come to house to buy them, for all my crops I had different customers that come to our house to buy them. This started after there was a fight over my goods in the market by the buyers. Because of the quality of my goods, each time I took them to the market, there must be quarrel as buyers struggle to have them, more especially my yellow pepper, tomatoes (UTC) and the garden egg (the green specie). For this reason, some persons opted to come to our house any day I was to harvest and buy them. I harvest at least in every four days. These people bought from us and supply to retailers in different states of the country, most especially, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Owerri.
At some point, some persons started questioning the superiority of my goods over theirs. Some said I used “jars”(juju).Some even questioned why I chose to farm as single girl instead of living a simple life free of stress. I wondered on whose account I should have done that.
Some of them came and asked me to give them my specie of seeds, that mine is the best, some came to me right inside my farm at the time of transplant and begged that I give them some plant right from my hand there so that they could have the specie I had. Some asked that I sell from my nursery to them.
For me, I believe the quality of crops depends on the treatment given to the farm. Giving the farm good manure as at when due and given treatment against pest and insects leave the farm with good quality crops. But some people instead of doing the needful will be waiting for miracle and magic to happen.
How were you able to sponsor yourself in school?
It was never easy but I thank God that never fails. He has a way of perfecting things for us. The moment I got admission, even though I started with my money, God brought some people my way to help out. I could remember a woman from my village that gifted me N20,000 the moment she heard that I gained admission. Then my aunty, the person I served in Lagos, Dr. Onyekachi Iroanya and my good friend Joy Ugwu were always there for me whenever I am in dire need. In fact, they were the people that energized me. Again, I utilized every of my vacation and strike period by engaging in any menial job I can do and it will fetch me money. All through my days in school I was always occupied with something. I find it difficult to beg people money. I prefer to work and make the money, but when it goes beyond my capacity, I would have no option than to beg.
What’s your ambition now?
Speaking on my ambition, just like I said earlier, life has never given me chance to go by my choice. But nevertheless, I will continue to thrive on whatever life throws at me, so far my strength can carry it. My goal is to own whatever I find myself doing. If life gives me lemon, I will try my best to make lemonade out of it. However, I have strong passion for farming.
