This is only an attempt to answer the mind boggling question that has thrown so many persons into identity crisis. How should I handle this? I know this is where I should be saying stuff about where I come from and how my environment and the circumstances surrounding my birth has influenced my personality, so that is how we are going to roll.

If I was given an opportunity to choose when to be born, I would have gone for when my parents are older. But then, we only get to choose where, not when.

Mum had me when she was very young; 18 or 19, maybe. She must have been unsure about almost everything, who wouldn’t be? Young, naive and alone, she must have been at loss as to how to raise the first mini her.

My dad was a security personnel at the time with the Airports Authority and was never home; I didn’t know who he was for a very long time. He would leave for work before I woke up everyday and come back late at night. Mum was doing it all by herself. And because she was doing it all by herself, she sometimes got it wrong; she rocked too hard and pushed me away. We became two lonely girls living together.

But that didn’t last for long. My siblings came, dad lost his job and we had to move. In his depressed state, Dad allowed Mum make the new destination choice; she chose to move from Calabar to a slum in Abuja, just to be with her siblings. She probably got tired of the loneliness.

At our new place, a whole lot of things went wrong; maybe not entirely wrong. Maybe I needed to learn, firsthand, that patriarchy exists (on a very high level) in my society, maybe I needed to experience gender inequality, maybe I needed to go hungry for days, maybe I needed to be molested, and maybe I needed to be invisible for a while. Maybe I needed to be toughened.

Boring? Sorry.

Through all of that, all I had was my book and pen. Dad made sure we had the best formal education he could afford and he put all of his time into home teaching us; no excuses.

Mum made sure there was cloth on our backs and food in our stomachs by working 4 to 6 in her restaurant. Apart t from that, nothing else. So when I needed to say something, or a place to run to, I would go to my book and spill some ink on it. Wait! Oh yes, I was about nine years old.

Fast forward to who all of that has made me.

I, China Tori, am one part of the young woman named Uchenna (so named after my grandmother and as a replacement for my aunt who was lost during the Nigerian Civil War).

I am that part of Uchenna that prefers to express herself in writings and is passionate about social justice. In my writings, I explore the themes of love, family, social (in)justice, (in)equality, feminism and a bit of everything else. I am a young woman who is seeking out ways to live a life of relevance, and for me, this means adding value to the lives of the people around me.

I believe strongly in pooling small efforts and in celebrating small victories. I learnt early enough that it is not in my place to complain about the problems in my immediate community and that has led me to join youth groups (like Activista Nigeria) that are passionate about driving change in areas of poverty reduction, youth empowerment and gender equality.

What makes me tick? The very small things – the very little acts of love. Being with friends and family and listening to them inspires me to write sometimes but my greatest inspiration comes from listening to talks at Sacrament Meetings. I cherish my “alone time” as much as my sponge cakes.