Blog prepared by Abdulhamid Muhammad – trainee with LoG

July 2020

Introduction by Lucia Valente

I am so pleased to see our team of trainees in Nigeria expanding.  With the success of our education initiatives in Nigeria and building a solid team with the support of Samson and Muhammad, we have young people approaching us for training.  Below is an initial story by a new member of our LoG Nigeria team.

My name is Abdulhamid Muhammad, I am a Nigerian, born and raised in Kano. I am from middle class family; my father is a retired civil servant and my mother is a full time house wife. I had my primary education in Goldstar Nursery and primary school from 1999 – 2004 and secondary education in St Thomas Secondary School from 2004 – 2010.

To study Engineering has been my child hood ambition right from my primary school days. When I was in secondary school Mathematics was one of the things I enjoyed doing the most besides playing football. So much practice in Mathematics gave me the ability of understanding Physics and Chemistry well enough to pass my UTME exams, and God so kind I secured admission at Bayero University Kano to study Civil Engineering in 2011.

Studying Engineering went smoothly from the first year to the second year where we were thought computer programming using FOTRAN. We were thought how to simple programs to solve simple Mathematical equation, nothing in-depth. In my third year we took Computer Application course. We were thought how to use Applications like Excel, Word etc. These two courses developed my interest in computer and programming. I wanted to do more, I wanted to be a professional programmer not just use old language like FOTRAN and solve simple mathematics. But my biggest challenge then was that I don’t even know from where to start.

I started studying MATLAB on my own in my level 400 but I couldn’t achieve anything serious with it apart from solving simple Mathematics. I wanted to become a developer but I had no one to put me through.

Studying Engineering went very smoothly not until my level 500 when I was late for an optional course exam (design of timber structures) because I was sick. The policy in my university was that if a person misses an exam due to whatever circumstance. That person will have to wait for the next academic session to sit for that exam. I was misinformed that I don’t have to pay for registration. Only thing I had to do was to come and sit for the exam in the upcoming session. The following year after I have sat for the exam my name was not in the data base because I didn’t pay for registration. I had to wait one more session before I could pay and sit for the exam.

This fateful scenario extended my studies to August 2017 instead of 2015. Those two years gave me serious mental setback. I lost interest in Civil Engineering, Computer Programming, Mathematics and virtually everything. But thanks to Allah the event has come to pass and I have regained my confidence over time.

I used to discuss my interest in Programing and development to Muhammad and he introduced me to Loss of Generality. Thanks to him I am now on the right course to achieving my ambition and I have the right coach in the person of Samson who is trying all his possible best to make sure I am on track and doing the right thing. Special thanks to Lucia Valente for reaching out to us all the way from Ireland and giving us this opportunity.