COMPLETING THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT

Hi there!

How e dey be? Hope you're doing good? I pray that God is continually with you and that you enjoy His help always.

Welcome to today's gist. 

Last week, we were talking about my project and when we left off, I had said that anytime my senior friends asked me how my project was going, I would tell them to please ask me the next week and I'd have a reasonable answer. 

You know how 'tomorrow' never comes? That's how my 'next week' didn't arrive. Honestly, there were days when I'd be all geared up to do my project, then I'd sit before my computer and I'll just become blank! Believe me when I tell you that for the life of me, I couldn't seem to understand what to do. There were times when I'd actually sit down to do the project but I'd just be blank.

Interestingly, I had a very clear vision of how I wanted to do my Chapters 2 to 5, only Chapter 1 had me stumped and I remember telling a friend that if only I could just get through Chapter 1, I could finish the project in record time. Oya finish the Chapter 1 na! I no fit! The only time I made a little headway, with great emphasis on 'little' was one day in May when I stayed behind in school with my friend while she was working on her own project and I got ginger to work on my project, doing a total of two pages😂😂. 

Exams began to approach and I just told myself the truth that I would not be able to combine trying to work on project, that I didn't understand, with reading for you exams so I decided to leave the project and resume after exams. 

Then my system decided to do me it's own. All of a sudden, while I was reading for exams, my screen light went off. The system was still on, in fact if you put light to the screen, you could see the icons and basically operate the computer, but the screen would refuse to light up. That only served to aid in my decision to be unserious with the project. 

After exams, I first had to come down from the clouds where I began to reside after my final paper and by the time I was coming down, it was time to hand over the offices I had been holding during my final year and I told myself that the morning after I had handed over my last position of responsibility, I would begin my project in earnest. My twin sister had given me till the middle of July to be done with Chapters 1 to 3 so of course I had to work, plus I was tired of replying "omo, the project is there oo" whenever I was asked how far with my project. 

The morning after I had officially relieved myself of all my duties in University of Jos, I decided to 'wake up easy' and enjoy the euphoria of not having any office in UniJos. 

Well that decision didn't last long.

My friend Esther called me to ask me if I had heard the rumour that the deadline for project was that Friday (that was Monday). If you see the way my eye clear that morning, and the speed with which it did, you for laff me. 

I stood up and transferred all the research work I had done, plus my 2 pages of Chapter 1, to my sister's system an MD began to earnestly work on it. I just left the Chapter 1 and went to Chapter 2, a decision I wished in retrospect that I had done earlier.  

I called my best friend and asked him to help me look for materials for literature review on the subject of refugees. Let me just pause and say that my best friend is one of the best people in this world! The entire time I was working on this project, he was awake each night and on standby waiting to help me with whatever I needed. Thank you so much Boki! God bless you for me.

For me to be able to finish project by Friday, I would have to have finished at least Chapter 3 by Wednesday. As I was working, I now heard that my Supervisor was supposed to travel on Thursday morning, I don decide say even if na to waybill the project go meet her where she dey, I go waybill, she didn't travel sha. 

I called my friend Mercy and told her that I was thinking of going to school on Tuesday night to pull an all nighter, she decided to come with me. I spent all of Monday, including a sleepless night, and part of Tuesday working on Chapter 2, then began working on Chapter 3.

When my friend and I got to school, we realized that we were the only 2 people in the entire faculty of law, which was not surprising seeing as this was about 3 weeks after exams. 

Wetin Britain use my eye see ba! 

Analysing the National Commission for Refugees Act was pretty straight forward and I was done in good time. E reach Britain turn, dem just carry me go where I no know!

The chief legal instrument on Refugees in the UK is the Nationality and Borders Act which came to amend a couple of laws that had each touched on some aspect of refugees, asylum and immigration. The way the Act amended the laws was really tiresome. For example, it would simply say something like "This Section amends Section 20 of the Immigration Act 1971, removing the word 'and'". I go come need go download the Immigration Act, find the Section 20, understand wetin e dey talk with the 'and', then without the 'and' before I go come back the original Act wey I dey review. And I did this over and again across several laws. I remember almost bursting into tears by 6am on Wednesday morning when the Nationality and Borders Act referred me to yet another law!

By the grace of God, I finished Chapter 3, then worked on my Chapter 1 and printed them all to go and submit. The plan was to come back to work on Chapter 4 and take it to my supervisor first thing the next morning then come back to work on Chapter 5. 

Remember that my Chapterization that I was gisting you last week that I submitted? I go see am as I carry my Chapters 1 to 3 go submit. 

Red ink everywhere!

My supervisor had made corrections to my Chapterization, altering the content of Chapters 2 to 4. So wetin I carry go to submit na all waste! I honestly felt like crying and na just God help me wey I no cry the cry true true. 

Came home and studied the corrections and realized that for most part, I would have to be rearranging my work and not rewriting the entire thing which was really a blessing; I still had to write add but it wasn't as much as I'd feared. 

Na so I sit down from night till morning that day dey write. My sister would wake up, look at me and ask "you sleep wake up abi you never sleep?" And I would always answer "wetin dey worry me pass sleep". Na so I count time till see six in the morning. 

I finished my Chapters 1 to 4 by 6:15am and got ready to go and submit. Called the guy that was printing my project before 6am and pleaded with him to start going to work so I could meet him there. The really amazing thing is that he went there with complaint.

Submitted my Chapters 1 to 4 that morning then I came back home and began Chapter 5. 

Normally, Chapter 5 no suppose hard abi? E sha show me something.

Chapter 5 is typically the conclusion of the entire project, summarizing what has been found and making the relevant recommendations. Problem was, my supervisor made me do that in Chapter 4 so when I reach 5, I no know wetin to write wey no go be repetition of Chapter 4. No be small scratching of head I do before God, once again, gave me direction on what to do in my Chapter 5 and I was able to finish it. 

I finished Chapter 5 at 5:42pm on Friday. Then I went to print and get it ready for submission. This was the prelude that built up the tiredness with which I went to cross river wey I nearly go see Jesus the next day. 

To the glory of God, I wrote my entire project within 5 days and when corrections and grading had been done, I got an A in the project. 

When I saw it, I just kept thinking about how faithful God is and how He came through for me even though I didn't deserve it.

And that's how God does it: He never waits for us to be deserving before He shows us His mercy and grace, He does it for us even when we are undeserving, especially because nothing we can ever do can make us deserving. He always does it in ways that leave no doubt as to the fact that only He could have done it. That's what He proved with my project because if for no other reason, I didn't deserve the A for all the shifting and unseriousness I displayed with the project, but He fulfilled His word in my life and project and for that I'll always remain grateful. 

Well that's the entire, long, story about writing my project. I just thought to share, I hope you enjoyed my tale and maybe learnt not to procrastinate. May God help us to do things when we are supposed to, and not wait for deadlines to catch up with us.

Till next week. 

Love,

Achenyo.