My Uber Driver Asked Me One Question And I Have Not Recovered

Last week I ordered Uber from VI to Ikeja for a 7am meeting. Driver showed up in a clean Corolla, AC working, no perfume bomb. I am thinking finally, Lagos is healing.

Twenty minutes in, he asked me what I do. I said software engineer, remote, US company. He went quiet for like two minutes. Then he said, "My daughter is in UNILAG, 300 level computer science. She keeps telling me the market is saturated. That everybody is doing it. She wants to switch to accounting."

I asked him what he tells her. He said he tells her to finish what she started. But he does not know if he is right. He is just a driver. The man has been driving for eleven years to pay her fees and he does not know if the thing he is paying for will feed her.

I did not have an answer for him. I still do not. I sent my mother her monthly money that evening and sat there staring at my laptop. Somebody's father is out here driving through Lagos traffic at 5am betting everything on a course load he cannot verify.