I often wonder what I’d be doing if I wasn’t a management consultant.
Sometimes, I imagine I’d thrive as an artist — though I haven’t touched a brush since I dropped it after my WAEC exams. Other times, I think I’d be great at event planning or styling but I’m too much of a perfectionist. A small mistake, a delayed vendor or a loose thread on an outfit could unravel my sanity.
As a wellness enthusiast, I’ve considered becoming a fitness and lifestyle content creator but I’m often in my head, unsure if I could navigate the attention that might follow. As a lover of fashion, I dream of starting a clothing line, even seeing it on a runway but I am yet to pick up a pencil to sketch the first look.
What I do know is this: the core of me is an active volcano of art, searching for a fault line through which to erupt. While the happiest version of me always shows up when I’m in nature — in quiet union with nature.
Who would’ve thought that lending my expertise to a sister project in Yobe would be the moment that brought all of these reflections into focus?
On July 17, 2025, I travelled from Gashua to Machina, a local government area bordering Niger Republic. The journey began with work at the forefront of my mind. But as we moved through the terrain, the scenery commanded my full attention: open plains, breathtaking, vast and littered with a staggering number of cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, camels and a few horses.
A few weeks earlier, these lands had been dry and brittle. Now, with the rains, it was lush and the shrubs vibrant with green. The transformation was undeniable but what caught my attention even more was the rhythm of movement. The animals and the people with them were heading south. Some carried loads while some bore sticks. Curiosity made me ask colleagues where they were going. I was told: “They’re migrating to the southern part of Nigeria and eventually to Cameroon. They do this every year. It’s seasonal.”
It was a lightbulb moment for me.
These were the “migrant populations” that we so often refer to in polio campaign planning meetings. The same groups we struggle to reach. The nomads I studied in Geography. The Fulanis my mother once playfully suggested I should join, since I loved to walk and they were always in transit.
They are the real-life “Ajala the Traveller” — people who live the metaphor life is a journey in its literal sense. Born into movement. Carried by the seasons. Existing outside of permanence.
I began to wonder: does anyone among them ever rebel? Does anyone wish to settle? What does enjoyment mean to them? Do they experience wealth in the way we define it or is their abundance in livestock simply a means of survival and continuity?
I thought to myself — it must be a hard life, constantly moving, constantly adapting. Turns out I was thinking out loud, because a senior colleague quickly offered a different perspective. “To them,” he said, “you are just as strange as they are to you.”
He explained:
“You spend 20 years in school, graduate into unemployment or unstable jobs and may need to retrain just to survive. However, they learn their livelihood from childhood, build “real” wealth and pass it on. You only think they’re not “enjoying” life because you’re measuring it with your own standards.”
He was right. My perception of enjoyment, wealth and progress is shaped by the world I know. But that world isn’t universal. Perhaps they don’t need the trappings of modernity to feel modern. Perhaps they already are.
That moment shifted my thinking. Maybe what the world needs to be better isn’t a full understanding of people’s choices. Maybe what we need is an appreciation of difference, a curiosity that doesn’t judge and a shared respect for humanity expressed in any form.
I began to imagine what life would be like as one of them — walking through the Sahel and Sudan savannahs, eventually reaching the dense greens of the Guinea savannah and subsequently proceeding to the towering vegetations of the rain forest and beyond. Waking each day with a single goal: move. Rest at sunset. Repeat the next day.
I assume they have systems. They have leadership. They have medicine. They have structure. They have a civilization, just not one that needs concrete or connectivity to be legitimate.
Maybe one day, I’ll leave consulting behind and immerse myself in their world. Or maybe I’ll simply keep wondering about that life. Either way, I carry a deep curiosity — one that makes me question the very meaning of life and the many ways it can be lived.
And who knows, maybe when that day comes, I’ll crowdsource the adventure or pitch it as a SCIDaR research study. Crazier ideas have turned into real work.
But until then, here’s what I do know: I’m a pharmacist with a master’s in public health. I love fitness, art and nature. I work as a management consultant and I’m committed to helping eradicate polio…even if it means tracing migration trails to reach every last child under five.
So, I’ll continue this journey, wherever it leads.
Written by Amkayas Myesgin – SCIDaR Associate.
