Growing up, I was an impoverished skinny girl with fat dreams - Funmi Iyanda

Top broadcaster Funmi Iyanda was recently honoured by the  University of Cumbria in recognition of her significant global contribution to human rights and sustainability. In her speech, she thanked the University, her family and her friends.

She also revealed something very interesting about her younger years.

Growing up, I was an impoverished skinny girl with fat dreams. Naturally there was a lot of frustration but there was also a lot of going to markets because well my mother was dead and I was the oldest and only female child so I did most of the cooking. I developed a love for markets and a dislike for my aunt who always responded to all my frustrations with a non-committal “ona kan o woja” (there is no one route into the market).

 I could be discussing quantum physics with her and at my most perplexed point, she´d say but “Aduke ona kan o woja.” It took years for me to understand that she was trying to teach me to repudiate ideology and dogma in favour of adaptability, functionality and multiplicity.

In my culture, getting good education is non-negotiable so l was determined to go to university.  I worked 3 jobs from age 15 to save up for university. When l walked into the lush fields of the prestigious university of Ibadan in Nigeria, l kissed the grass and shed tears. 

Four years later when l walked out, l didn’t even bother to collect my certificate. In my second year of university l had also walked out of the church of my youth. Granted l was tired of the virginity requirement, being unaware that l could have lied about that like many wiser than me had. I walked out really because l was no longer convinced about the infallibility of the one way, the true way, the only way.

I had begun to discover that for many things there are many ways, particularly for markets.

I like markets, it is a place of human interaction, of pride in one’s product and hopefully fair exchange of products for needs.

Good markets have clear functional rules that allow fair and equitable exchange. When kingdoms seek to overtake another, they break their markets and militarily surround them. Breaking markets is symbolic of a suspension of respect for negotiation, interaction and fairness. A conviction that one’s way is best and others are best following that one way. You may recognise that principle in modern foreign diplomacy as “our interests”.

I hated school but loved education, I wanted to know things and discover things not be told things.

I wanted to be a writer but I didn’t see  how writers got paid , since I hated asking anyone for money, I decided I’d be a journalist but my father wanted me to be a doctor because well, everybody’s father wanted them to be a doctor, also my father wished he was a doctor.

He said doctors made money and were respected; journalists just get blown up or become impoverished.

My father ate his words before he died five years ago, not because I didn’t get blown up, but because he liked to eat and words are nice.

-Culled from INSTITUTE FOR LEADERSHIP AND SUSTAINABILITY