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You can't cheat the journey and expect the destination

By Emeka Chiaghanam

Chinedu Okonkwo believed in efficiency above all else. From his earliest school days in Lagos, he sought the quickest path between any two points with an almost religious zeal. While other children struggled through homework, Chinedu found clever workarounds. While classmates read entire books, he skimmed summaries. His father called it resourcefulness. His mother worried it was something else entirely.

"Life rewards those who don't waste time," his father often said, tapping his expensive watch. A successful businessman who built an empire on rapid expansion and aggressive acquisitions in Nigeria's booming telecom industry, Emmanuel Okonkwo embodied the gospel of shortcuts. His philosophy was simple: why climb the ladder when you can take the lift?

The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. By sixteen, Chinedu had mastered the art of minimum effort for maximum gain. School projects completed with cunning efficiency. Relationships cultivated for strategic advantage. Even his hobbies became exercises in finding the edge, the angle, the shortcut through the maze.

University at Ibadan only refined these instincts. While others buried themselves in libraries, Chinedu built networks of contacts who shared notes and past papers. He charmed professors and teaching assistants. He discovered which courses graded on curves and which required mere memorisation rather than understanding.

"You're missing the point of education," his roommate Tunde argued one night as Chinedu cobbled together an essay from fragments of other papers. "The learning is what matters."

Chinedu looked up from his screen, genuinely puzzled. "The degree is what matters. The learning is just the price you pay."

He graduated with first class honours. No one questioned how.

The corporate world in Lagos seemed designed for someone with Chinedu's talents. He joined a fast-growing fintech company where results mattered more than methods. Chinedu delivered results. He worked smart rather than hard, delegating the heavy lifting while claiming credit for successes. He built a reputation as someone who could solve problems with elegant efficiency.

By thirty, he'd climbed halfway up the corporate ladder in Nigeria's competitive business landscape, skipping several rungs along the way. His colleagues whispered about his meteoric rise. Some admired him. Others resented him. None truly knew him.

"How do you do it?" asked Amara, a new hire who'd quickly fallen under his spell. They sat in an upscale bar in Victoria Island after hours, celebrating another project Chinedu had "rescued" at the eleventh hour.

"I see patterns others miss," he said, swirling expensive palm wine in crystal. "Everyone else takes the long way round."

What he didn't mention were the corners cut. The colleagues subtly undermined. The data carefully presented to hide inconvenient truths. The promises made with flexible definitions of "delivery." The palms greased with naira notes to expedite approvals.

His personal life followed the same philosophy. Relationships became transactions. Friendships lasted as long as their utility. Even leisure became another arena for optimisation. Holidays were carefully curated for maximum social media impact in places like Calabar Carnival and Obudu Mountain Resort. Hobbies chosen for networking potential rather than enjoyment.

Chinedu Okonkwo was a man in perpetual motion, always moving toward the next achievement, the next validation. Never still enough to notice what slipped through his fingers in the rush or to honour the values his grandmother had tried to instil in him during childhood visits to their ancestral village in Enugu State.

The promotion to Chief Strategy Officer came as no surprise to anyone. At thirty-five, Chinedu had positioned himself as indispensable in one of Nigeria's most successful companies. The CEO praised his "innovative approaches" and "ability to cut through complexity." What remained unsaid was how many bodies Chinedu had stepped over to reach this summit, how many traditions and values he had abandoned.

His father called to congratulate him. "Always knew you had it in you, my son. You played the game better than I ever did."

That night, alone in his minimalist penthouse apartment overlooking the Lagos Lagoon, Chinedu should have felt triumphant. Instead, a strange hollowness expanded in his chest. He poured himself a drink and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Lights twinkled below, countless lives unfolding in patterns he couldn't discern or control.

For the first time in years, Chinedu allowed himself to wonder what it had all been for. The shortcuts. The clever manoeuvres. The careful construction of a life that looked impressive from the outside but felt increasingly empty of the community values he had grown up with.

The thought passed quickly. He had a strategy meeting in the morning.

The company's newest venture was Chinedu's brainchild. A revolutionary mobile payment solution that promised to transform financial inclusion across Nigeria and eventually all of West Africa. Under his leadership, development timelines were compressed. Testing phases abbreviated. Regulatory compliance navigated with generous "consultation fees." Marketing campaigns accelerated.

"We need more time," Olumide, the head of engineering pleaded during a tense meeting. "There are fundamental issues we haven't resolved, especially with rural connectivity."

"The market waits for no one," Chinedu replied coolly. "We can fix any problems after launch. Nigeria needs this solution now."

The board trusted his judgment. The product launched to great fanfare at a lavish event in Abuja attended by government ministers and business leaders.

Three months later, the first reports of catastrophic failures began to surface from users in Kano, Enugu, and smaller communities. Six months later, a major recall was announced. Nine months later, the company's reputation had plummeted, and customers were fleeing in droves to competitors.

Chinedu found himself in the CEO's office, facing questions he couldn't answer with his usual verbal sleight of hand.

"I trusted you," the CEO said quietly. The disappointment in her voice cut deeper than anger would have. "We all did. We wanted to be the company that finally got it right for Nigeria."

The next day, Chinedu cleared out his office. As he carried the box of personal items to his car, he passed the engineering team working through another weekend to salvage what they could from his rushed project.

Olumide looked up as he passed. There was no satisfaction in the man's exhausted eyes. Only sadness.

"You never understood," he said simply. "Some things can't be rushed. Our people have waited generations for financial dignity. A few more months of development would have been worth it."

The fall from grace was swift and total. In Lagos business circles built on reputation, Chinedu became a cautionary tale. Job applications went unanswered. Former colleagues didn't return calls. Invitations to weddings and important naming ceremonies stopped coming. His carefully cultivated network evaporated overnight.

His father, always his staunchest defender, offered cold comfort. "You'll bounce back. Find another angle. Nigeria is a land of second chances."

But something had shifted inside Chinedu. The familiar strategies felt hollow now. For the first time, he began to question the philosophy that had guided his entire life, so at odds with the traditional values of patience and community his grandmother had tried to teach him.

He rented a modest flat in Surulere after selling the penthouse to cover mounting debts. Without the trappings of success to distract him, Chinedu confronted the emptiness of his days. No goals to chase. No competitors to outmanoeuvre. Just hours that stretched endlessly before him.

On a Tuesday afternoon with nowhere to be, Chinedu found himself walking through Freedom Park. He noticed an elderly man teaching a young girl, perhaps his granddaughter, to play ayo (a traditional Nigerian mancala game) on one of the stone tables.

Chinedu stopped to watch. Ayo had been one of his grandfather's passions, though Chinedu had quickly abandoned it after learning enough to beat his cousins during holiday visits to the village.

"Would you like to join us for the next game?" the old man asked in Yoruba, noticing Chinedu's interest.

Something about the gentle invitation broke through Chinedu's usual defences. He sat down.

"I should warn you, I was quite good at this," Chinedu said, arranging the seeds.

The old man smiled. "Good is about more than winning. Our ancestors played this game to bring communities together, not to divide them."

Chinedu lost the first game in twelve moves. Then the second in fifteen. By the third game, his competitive instinct had fully awakened, and he focused intently on each seed, each possible move.

"You're thinking too many steps ahead," the old man advised. "Ayo isn't just about the quickest path to victory. It's about building a position, creating harmony between your moves."

"That takes too long," Chinedu objected.

"That's the game," the old man replied simply. "And that's life too, my son."

Chinedu returned to the park the next day, and the next. The old man, Baba Adeyemi, became his first real friend in longer than he could remember. Their ayo games stretched into conversations about life, philosophy, regret, and redemption.

"I spent my career as a civil engineer," Baba told him one harmattan afternoon as dust from the Sahara settled lightly on their game board. "I could have taken contracts that went up quickly and made me richer by cutting corners. Many did during the building booms. But I chose projects that would last, that would mean something to our communities."

"And was it worth it?" Chinedu asked.

Baba gestured to a bridge visible beyond the trees. A structure with elegant proportions that connected two communities previously separated by a stream. "Twenty years it's been standing through flood seasons. My grandchildren cross it to school every day. What do you think?"

Slowly, painfully, Chinedu began to rebuild his life without shortcuts. He found work at a small agricultural technology startup founded by Tunde, his university roommate who had once chided him about the purpose of education. The company worked directly with small-scale farmers across Nigeria, helping them increase yields through sustainable methods. The role was junior, the pay modest, but the work had integrity.

"Why hire me?" Chinedu asked Tunde over peppersoup on his first day. "You know how I operated before."

"Because you've failed," Tunde said without cruelty. "And people who've really failed, who've hit bottom because of their own mistakes, either become bitter or become wise. In our culture, we believe in redemption. I'm betting on wise."

The work was harder than anything Chinedu had done before. No cutting corners. No passing responsibilities to others. No claiming unearned credit. Just honest effort, day after day. Traveling to remote villages, listening to farmers rather than talking at them, building solutions that addressed real needs rather than what looked impressive in presentations.

There were moments he longed for his old ways, the rush of outwitting the system. But those impulses faded as he experienced the deeper satisfaction of mastering genuine skills, of earning respect rather than manipulating it, of reconnecting with values that had sustained Nigerian communities for generations.

Five years later, Chinedu sat across from a young job applicant who reminded him uncomfortably of his younger self. Bright, ambitious, with that same calculating look in his eyes.

"Your CV is impressive," Chinedu said. "Almost too impressive for someone your age."

The young man smiled confidently. "I believe in efficiency. Lagos is too competitive these days. Why take the long road when there's a shorter path?"

Chinedu thought of all the shortcuts he'd taken. The hollow victories. The spectacular fall. The slow, difficult climb toward something authentic.

"Let me tell you a story," Chinedu began. "About a man who took every shortcut and still ended up lost. A story about what our elders try to teach us about patience."

The young man's smile faltered as Chinedu spoke. By the time he finished, the calculation in those eyes had been replaced by something like thoughtfulness.

"We're building something meaningful here," Chinedu concluded. "Something that will last, something that honors both modern Nigeria and the wisdom of our traditions. There are no shortcuts to that kind of success. The journey is the point."

Later that evening, Chinedu played ayo with Baba Adeyemi in the same park, beneath trees that had grown a little taller. His game had improved over the years, though he still lost more often than he won.

"Check," Baba announced with a twinkle in his eye.

Chinedu studied the board, seeing not just the immediate threat but the whole beautiful pattern that had led to this moment. He conceded with a respectful nod.

"Another game?" Baba asked.

"Absolutely," Chinedu replied. "I'm in no hurry. As my grandmother used to say, 'The river that rushes too quickly forgets to carry the villages along with it.'"