“Patience is a subtle thief. It’s a thief of time  and a thief of money. See this country? People have been patient for democracy. Patient for change. All their patience will eventually steal their hope. They say fraud, and they say 419 when they speak of what I do, but the government is really the biggest fraud”. 

The relevance of this quote seeps within this story. Set in the 1990s in Nigeria, a story of a girl seeking her purpose while searching for a mother who left when she was a child. With a wicked stepmother, a father consumed by greed, and a stepsister who loves her unconditionally, Patience has rebellion sitting at her fingertips and leaves home to attend university. Patience is not my ideal character. She is naive and gullible and I almost forgot how childlike she really is. Sheltered and seeking independence is no easy tasks but what Patience finds is no true happy ending. 

Of wealth and yet not wealthy at all. What one defines as rich may be present in different forms. Patience slowly detours away from college with a dream to return to America to find her mother. “Wasn’t it so— to be American born meant problems were misunderstandings? Hardship to the American born, a foreign concept?” But with doing so, she encounters a group of friends who are seeking a financial freedom that will alter their lives forever. Though money seems to fix all, their is an election at hand and one character , Mayowa symbolizes hope as his belief in doing what’s right and voting in a rightful president will change the dynamics of their lives and will give men like Chike (Patience’s boyfriend) a job he is deserving of after graduating university and yet his current occupation is an Okada driver. 

The dynamics between patience and Chike bothered me. How long do we beg a man to fully commit before you call it quits? Granted, Patience fell in love with him as if she’s been dehydrated for years and finally got a drop of water. Chikes character changes and  his development shocked me but what do you do when change does not come?

“Poverty can be like a mental disease that affects people in two ways: either you succumb to it for the rest of your life or you spend your days searching for ways to be rid of it. And for those lucky enough to escape poverty, there can be an obsession to never return there”.

Patience shows us what’s it like to seek independence and how everyone who smiles in your face is not friendly. How greed can change and how putting your faith in something does not mean the outcome will be in your favor. In fact, if so, the sacrifices may not be worth it in the end.