What the Soil Refused to Forget

I have a cousin,who graduated with a degree in Accountingand now fries akara by Oja-Oba junctionat five every morning,her ledger now a frying pan,her balance sheet now a basin of bean paste.She does not complain.She says the oil does not askwhat certificate you holdbefore it turns golden. I remember when she first started,how the neighbours whispered,how some uncles shook their headsand said her father's school feeshad gone to feed a fire instead of a future. But I have also seenthe same unclesbuy two wraps of moimoi from her stallon their way to officesthat have not paid them in three months.So who, really, is laughing at whom?There is a song our mothers used to sing,half warning, half prayer:Ìwé l'ọmọ mi má kà o,kò ní báwọn dín àkàrà l'ẹ́bá ọ̀nà ooo. Read your books, my child,so you will not end upfrying akara by the roadside.It was not just a song.It was a covenant. A whole generation's betthat paper could outrun poverty,that a certificate was a kind of passportout of the heat their hands had known.But this soil has refused to forgetthe people who fed it. It keeps calling its children back,the graduate selling roasted cornon a stick by the expressway,the lecturer with a PhDwho now sells akara on weekendsnot because he failed,but because the salaryforgot to arrive again this month. I have seen the memes."Those who mocked our mothers for frying puff-puffare now frying small chops in Lekki and calling it a brand."We laugh.We share.We move on.But underneath the laughteris a question nobody wants to roast and eat:why does a countrykeep producing graduatesfaster than it produces jobsfor those graduates to refuse?I am not here to saythat selling akara is shameful.It is not. There is no shamein oil-stained handsthat refuse to remain idle,no shame in a frying panthat has fed more mouthsthan some offices ever paid.Dignity was never reservedfor those behind a desk.It lives, too,in a woman counting changeunder harmattan dust,in a young man turning cornover open coal,in anyone who looks at hungerand decides to work instead of wait.But here is what unsettles me:our parents did not send us to schoolonly so we could learnnew and better ways to survive. They sent us to schoolso survival itselfwould no longer be the ceiling. So I ask, not in mockery,not even in pity,but in the way you ask a questionyou are still living inside of,if education was the ladderour parents built with their own labour,why does the soilkeep pulling so many of usback down to where they started,and calling itfinding yourself? — Jagun Quareeb Alabi You can show love by leaving a tip. Thank you.

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