UWABUEBEIZUIKE — THE WORLD IS NOT A RESTING PLACE_ BY BISHOP SAHR ISAAC PETERSON

The first time I heard the name, it hit me like rain on dry tin.  

“Uwabuebeizuike!” the bus conductor shouted, stretching the word until it cracked, and the whole park in Oshodi turned.  

It was 2016. I was 19, and it was my first time visiting Nigeria.  

I had come from Ghana for a 1-year mentorship in electrical works. The program was supposed to place me in a workshop in Ikeja. By the second week, the workshop closed. “Owner travel,” they said. No number, no refund.  

I was broke, dusty, and carrying one blue duffel bag with all my life folded inside it. The city smelled like diesel, suya smoke, and wet concrete after afternoon rain. People moved like ants after a storm — fast, urgent, eyes forward. And I was standing in the middle of it with a foreign accent and twelve naira in my palm.

I was sitting on the edge of a cement slab near the motor park, counting those coins. Not even enough for pure water. The sun was pressing down like a hot hand.  

That was when a man dropped down beside me. Tall, lean, with skin the color of roasted groundnut and eyes that didn’t blink much, like he was always measuring distance. His singlet was faded gray, but his black shoes were polished until they caught light. That detail stuck in my head. A man with no money and clean shoes.

“Guy, you look like hunger is chasing you,” he said, and grinned. His teeth were white, uneven, with one missing at the back.  

He heard my accent.  

I laughed, dry. “Hunger caught me three buses ago. It’s walking behind me now. And I’m not even from here.”  

He reached into a frayed Ghana-must-go bag and pulled out a nylon of puff-puff. Still warm. He split it with his hands and gave me half. “Eat. My name is Uwabuebeizuike.”  

I choked on crumbs. “What kind of name is that?”  

He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at me like I’d asked about the sky. “Igbo. It means _the world is not a resting place_.” He said it slow, rolling each syllable. “My father gave it to me the day my mother died. He said, ‘Son, when you are tired, let this name wake you.’”

I didn’t know what to say. So I just chewed. The puff-puff was sweet and it tasted like mercy.

We didn’t talk much that day. But the next morning, before the park woke up, he was there again. Two plates of rice and stew from the buka near Mile 2, steam curling in the cool air like lazy smoke. We sat on that same slab and ate with plastic spoons while conductors screamed destinations.  

He asked about my mentorship. I told him the truth. “It fell apart.”  

He nodded. “Then we will build another one.”

He told me his story between bites. He had come to Lagos from Enugu two years before me. Sold pure water in traffic, shouting “Pure water! Cold!” until his throat was sandpaper. Slept under Oshodi bridge when rent failed. Learned to fix generators by standing behind mechanics for hours, watching their hands, because apprenticeship fees were a mountain he couldn’t climb.  

“World no dey wait for you to rest,” he’d say, tapping his chest with two fingers. “If you sit, dust will cover you. And when dust covers you, people will forget where you dey. Especially if you be stranger.”

We became brothers in the way stranded people do — by sharing. Sharing bread. Sharing the narrow space under a kiosk when rain came hard and drummed the zinc roof until we had to shout to hear ourselves. Sharing job leads scribbled on the back of receipts. He introduced me as “my guy from Ghana” to every electrician he knew.

One night, during rainy season, the streets turned to rivers. We were walking back from Ikeja, trousers rolled up, and the water was up to our knees. Streetlights made yellow coins on the surface. The air smelled like wet earth and petrol. He stopped in the middle of the road, tilted his face up, and let the rain hit him.  

“You see this place?” he said, water running down his chin. “Lagos will chew you if you sleep. But if you move, even small small, it will feed you. The world is not a resting place.”

Two months later, luck touched him. A contract to do wiring in a new plaza in Surulere. The owner liked his polished shoes, he joked. He dragged me along as his “apprentice.” For the next 10 months, that became my mentorship. We woke at 5am, caught two buses, and worked until the last bulb flickered out at 10pm. Our hands got cut on sharp wires. Our backs sang with pain. But on Fridays, he’d buy Gala and a cold Coke and we’d sit on the unfinished staircase. Lagos would burn orange at sunset, and the noise below would sound like the sea.

Even when he finally got a small room in Egbeda — one room, fan that shook, mattress on the floor — he didn’t rest. He was up at 5am, lacing those same shoes. “Uwabuebeizuike,” he’d mutter to himself. A prayer and a command.

He taught me more than wiring. He taught me how to talk to customers without begging. How to save 200 naira even when you’re hungry. How to answer “where you dey from” with pride instead of fear. “Pain is a visitor,” he said one night. “If you open the door and offer it chair, it will stay. If you keep walking, it will get tired and leave.”

The last time I saw him was at Jibowu park. Harmattan was starting. The air was dry and my lips were cracked. My 1-year was up. I was finally heading back to Ghana. The official mentorship had failed, but I was going home with new hands.  

He pressed 5,000 naira into my palm. The notes were crisp, folded twice.  

“Don’t sit down,” he said. “Keep moving. Even if it’s small steps. Ghana will need what you learned here.”  

I wanted to hug him. Instead I nodded, because men like us don’t do hugs in parks.

I’ve not seen him since. Sometimes I hear stories. Someone saw a man fixing a generator in Yaba. Someone else said he now has three boys working under him. I don’t know if it’s true.

But every time life tells me to slow down, to quit, to lay my head and say “I’m tired,” I hear that name. Uwabuebeizuike.  

It sounds like a drum at dawn. It sounds like a warning. It sounds like truth.  

Nigeria didn’t break me in 2016 because one man with polished shoes and puff-puff refused to let me sit in the dust. He reminded me daily that the world is not a resting place.  

And because of him, I learned to walk anyway. 

Yours truly, 

Bishop Sahr Isaac Peterson 

Writer| Public Speaking Coach 

Irresistible creative Writing Coach