Wiw!!
I have been off here for 10 looong days!
You know how you feel like most of the things happening in Nigeria cannot touch you. Like, yes, you know that there’s a lot of problems with the economy and there’s no money for a lot of people, and the environment is not so conducive for growth and all that. But then they are a little unreal to you because those things have just stayed topical.
Well, I had my first-hand experience with how messed up the country is.
My website hosting fees expired. Did I know that was going to happen? Well, yes. But paying for your hosting fees is simply supposed to be determined by whether you have the money to or not. It was supposed to be a matter of me going to my sponsor and saying, ‘My hosting fees are due’; and then he’ll say, ‘Oh sure, I got you’ And in two minutes, life goes on.
So when the hosting fees expired and my site sorta disappeared front-end, I went to my sponsor and said, ‘My site is down. I think the hosting fee is expired’. ‘Oh sure, I got you’, he said. But then that day passed, and the next day and the next and until 10 days after.
What happened?
The hosting site was unable to access funds from the Nigerian bank card because of bank policies, so they rejected the Card.
The economy has literally limited its citizens freedom to universally contract in a global and technologically developing world. At first, I thought, ‘Well, no, it can’t be that bad. It’ll probably just take a couple more vigorous checks and steps and wahala and then, they’ll accept the card. After all, don’t they want to collect money?’
It’s funny that I thought like that because earlier in the year, I had tried to purchase a watch online from a foreign site and the same thing had happened to me. They rejected my card and I had to wire money to someone who was abroad to help get the watch.
Long story short, we had to do the same thing. Wire money to someone with a domiciliary account to help me pay.
And here I am today, 10 days short of posting an article.
But then again, I try never to cast all blame on external factors. I mean, if I really wanted to keep writing, there’s Medium; a medium for me to have continued writing. But I did not.
So, two take aways for me:
– The Nigerian reality is nearer to you than you imagine. (sorry to sound like a motivational speaker but,) we must all do something to make this country come out of what is looking like a horrible sinking.
Complacence with failing is the original failure.
– If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way to do it. It’s the way love and passion work. The economy has chopped more blame than it deserves.
Oh, by the way, I am currently in Adamawa State, Yola, Law Schooling. I hope I gather enough experience to blog about! And I hope I do excellently well enough that I am blogged about!
I'd love to hear your thoughts!