I wake before the sun,

not because I’m disciplined,

but because hope here rises early or not at all.

My alarm is hunger,

my motivation a timetable that keeps changing

like promises during election season.

I am an average Nigerian student,

carrying dreams in a nylon bag

because backpacks are expensive

and dreams, here, must learn to travel light.

The lecture hall is crowded

not just with bodies,

but with expectations,

broken fans,

and the echo of “ASUU may strike again.”

We write with pens that bleed,

listening to lecturers who rush

as if knowledge too is scarce

and must be shared in a hurry.

Sometimes there is light,

sometimes there is only candle smoke

and phone torches pretending to be electricity.

We read with tired eyes,

fighting sleep,

fighting mosquitoes,

fighting the quiet voice that asks,

“Will this degree save you?”

School fees rise like fuel prices

without warning, without mercy.

Parents say, “Manage.”

We’ve mastered that word.

We manage hunger.

We manage stress.

We manage dreams postponed

by strikes, by inflation, by a country

that keeps telling its youth to be patient

while time runs ahead of us.

Outside the gate, the nation waits

unemployment with open arms,

NYSC dreams that may lead nowhere,

talent begging for opportunity,

graduates selling hope in small portions

just to survive.

Yet still, we try.

We laugh loudly in hostels with cracked walls.

We dance to loud music to drown out fear.

We form friendships that feel like family

because sometimes, family is far

and data is expensive.

We are tired, yes

but not empty.

Our resilience is loud, even in silence.

Our survival is an act of rebellion.

Each exam we pass is a small protest.

Each morning we wake up and continue

is proof that we have not given up

not on education,

not on ourselves,

not on the idea that one day,

this struggle will make sense.

I am an average Nigerian university student,

standing between the blackboard and the breadline,

learning not just theories,

but endurance 

hoping that someday,

this country will finally learn us too.