Counting my blessings

• Published date: 08 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Iwas recently reminded of one of the numerous blessings I should be grateful to God for as a journalist when I saw my first International Passport issued in 1997 with my first Visa to travel out of the country.

'GRATIS', meaning FREE, written on the Visa to the United Kingdom to attend the Advance Journalism Course at Thomson Foundation, Cardiff, brought back the memory of the culmination of events when God proved to me that He is able to do exceeding and abundantly, beyond what we can think or imagine.

The first 'miracle' was that I applied for the three-month course in Cardiff not really sure I will be selected and to my surprise my application was successful.

Unfortunately, there was no scholarship for me to attend the programme and I needed to source one myself or pay about pound 3,500 tuition apart from the cost of the return flight which was about N150,000 then.

The Thomson Foundation advised me to reach out to the British Council in Nigeria for a scholarship and I did with a recommendation from the Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, Mr Edetaen Ojo

With the commencement date for the training drawing close and no other source of raising the tuition and flight fare, I was already losing hope about making the trip when the British Council graciously offered to pay my tuition and asked that The Punch where I was the Group News Editor before being redeployed as City Editor, pay for the flight.

Despite my redeployment which could have been a good reason for declining to pay for my flight, the former Managing Director, Mr Ademola Osinubi told me to go ahead with processing my Visa.

Based on the advice of those who were used to how difficult it is to obtain a Visa in the Lagos embassy office due to the large crowd of applicants and the short time I had to apply, I opted to try my luck in the Abuja office.

Due to the limited...