From street slippers to startup dreams: Wale’s journey from Abeokuta’s gutters

By Suliah Lawal

In the street of Itoko, a low-income community in Abeokuta, Ogun State, that is the place popular Ayinla Omowura was born.

The same community is where a young boy named Wale grew up in circumstances that would drown most. He was the second child in a struggling family of seven, held together by a mother who roasted corn by the roadside and a father who was more often seen drunk than sober.

Life was not kind, and by the time he was 13, Wale had already taken on the burdens of adulthood.

He became familiar with hardship at a level that left no room for dreams. Dinner was often just bread when they could afford it. Sometimes, he had to borrow slippers just to go and buy that bread.

When stew or butter wasn’t available, which was most nights, they soaked the bread in water. The family simply adapted to survival.

What made Wale different was his insatiable hunger to learn. While others surrendered to the streets, he began collecting used exercise books from refuse dumps, copying borrowed textbook chapters by candlelight on torn paper scraps.

He finished secondary school with excellent grades, but there was no money for further education. While his peers registered for UTME, he began hawking sachet water at Olumo Rock.

His story took a sharper turn when he followed a friend to Lagos in search of a better life.

The friend disappeared with the little money he had. With no place to go, Wale began sleeping on carton boxes under the bridge in Oshodi. For two weeks, he bathed in dirty market gutters, ate once a day, and watched people walk past him like he didn’t exist.

But fate is rarely linear. A roadside food vendor who noticed his quiet consistency and respectful manner eventually introduced him to a community church programme offering free digital literacy training. There, Wale learned the basics of computer use, graphic design, and data entry. He devoured the knowledge like someone who had been starving for more than food.

Within two years, he saved enough from odd jobs to purchase a used laptop. He ventured into freelance work, often walking kilometres just to get internet access. His persistence eventually paid off when a Canadian NGO hired him remotely for a design project. That contract changed everything.

Now 27, Wale is back in Abeokuta. He runs a small tech centre that trains disadvantaged youth. He employs three people and provides for his family, including his mother, siblings, and the woman who helped him when no one else did. His past remains a part of him, not as a burden, but as proof of how far he has come.

Poverty may deny access, but it cannot kill purpose when determination takes root.