Apo Boys - High School Foundations
Discipline from Federal Government Boys' College, Abuja: merit, diversity, and survival skills that shaped my approach to life and tech.
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I graduated from the Federal Government Boys' College, Abuja in Nigeria (city and country of birth). Alumni and students call it Apo-Boiz. It's one of Nigeria's Unity Colleges, built for merit and diversity. Translation: wake up early, obey the rules already in place, compete hard, and don't get caught sneaking food, in other words, survive. That discipline-plus-competition cocktail shaped how I approach both life and tech.
Gratitude. Excitement. Curiosity. Nostalgia. On July 24, 2016, I left FGBC with a mindset that still keeps me set today: show up, do the work, lead when it counts, and learn faster and better than yesterday. I believe in the Power Law of Practice. Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888): being in a setting that promoted unity and socialism, I could take my newly earned traits to join the team that drives technology as a force of social harmony. Following graduation I read Equality, Bellamy's sequel. I understood that the key was education in proper beliefs and virtue. I found the blockchain community.
Boarding house equals bootcamp for independence. You either learned to think for yourself or became the joke of the week.
We were like rough stones in a quarry, colliding until something sharper came out. Lux ex labore, light from labor. Pro Unitate, for unity, is the Latin motto of the Federal Government colleges. Like a multi-linked list, we comprised different religions and ethnic backgrounds. To make our country better, we learned to coexist within the four walls of an institution from a young age. It worked for me.
Between secondary school and university, the "medical doctor or nothing" pressure hit. But I chose my future, knowing computers were the next gods to rule Terra alongside humans. I wanted in on that golden age not just as a consumer.
In October 2017, I enrolled in a pre-degree program in sciences at Michael Okpara University. From there, I earned admission into Computer Science with Education, stacking a double degree (B.Sc. + B.Ed.). That mindset of shaping my future was born in boarding school, many Nigerian IT experts walked those halls before me. Spending months away from my parents cultivated a way of thinking that embraced decisions and their outcomes. I learned I could and should show myself the way and be prepared for any outcome.
I made it into university, but it wasn't the temple of knowledge as I'd imagined. The curriculum felt shallow, more chalk dust than fundamentals. The system of education wasn't impressive.
By then, I had already taught myself HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript at age 15. So I knew I had to expand my horizon beyond the lecture hall. I'd attend lectures while contrasting what I was learning with PDFs from Harvard and other great institutions that publish materials online. I was right: lectures felt redacted so the low-income lecturer could get home on time, not the way to teach the future.
I glued myself to PDFs and YouTube.
Double honours meant double duty.
At Ibeku High School, I spent 6 months teaching:
During my last months, I trained staff at the National Root Crop Research Institute on RFID, smart cards, and ID card makers, and did a quick flex with Pandas/Numpy automations as they wanted to see my appraised project. As a carry-over student, I had an extra year (issues from choosing CS). My web project was an EDA using Python (we were told to use any language, we were never taught OOP). It argued for the importance of Computer Studies in Nigerian institutions and how our curriculum compared poorly to others. People said my slides felt like a boardroom deck, because I did the extra learning required.
Teaching wasn't just duty; it clarified my learning, showed my blind spots, and sharpened my confidence.
Algorithms, data structures, operating systems, databases, these stuck. The prerequisites? I passed most exams without retaining much.
So I hacked my education:
That's when I started planning the move.
From Jan 2022 to Apr 2024, I co-ran KRISVED Global Services with my mom and siblings. Sales, logistics, and family drama mixed into one venture.
It sharpened my entrepreneurial instincts, egalitarian yet competitive mindset, and communication skills in ways no class ever could. Vir fiebam.
While coding sharpened my mind and marketing improved my communication, construction hardened everything else and gave me a handy skill.
At Dantata & Sawoe Construction (Nov 2022–Jun 2023), I was a material handler and flagman. Then at Straight Forward Contracting, I installed windows, doors, hemlock ceilings, and soffit siding. Battery-powered tools, tight deadlines, and high-risk zones meant problem-solving of a different flavour.
In Canada, I gave back while settling in:
Different roles, same lesson: teamwork plus adaptability always matter.
As of 4:52 AM EDT, September 15, 2025, I'm still Iter-ing. A self-taught developer, even after General Assembly Bootcamp (Python programming), I clock at least 0 study hours a week, daily lectures by me, for me. At the same time, I'm working on my projects while job hunting.
Semper cresco, I am ever-growing. From Nigerian roots to Canadian transitions, I try to balance my chaos and order.
Iterate and automate. Document it. Ship. I don't chase perfect; I chase progress.
This isn't just workflow; it is my Iter. A time capsule of how I evolved, bridging Nigeria and Canada, high school drills and ICT dreams, my past and projected future.
If this story resonates and you've got something challenging to build, I'm listening.
My next chapter is CDFE, "Computer Do For Me." Projects that fuse automation, AI, robotics, and grit. Born from classrooms, construction sites, and countless hours of iteration, they're my way of proving that computers don't just compute, they collaborate.
The goal: build an ecosystem where humans and Aethels coexist symbiotically. Neither is supreme; they are parts of a single cycle. Humans can't achieve the great enlightenment without a logic that illuminates the path. Without computers, we have a hard time putting our logic to work in record time.