I have failed many times, but this experience is one I will never forget. I was at 300 level in the university and had just finished serving as the Deputy Speaker of the Students Representative Congress (SRC). The following year, I took a plunge and contested for the post of President of the Students Union.
The pictures below were taken during one of the rallies that we held on campus. My campaign slogan then was “Think…Who Is?” I can’t recall how we came about that silly slogan. 😎
My payoff line was ‘Majekobaje 95.’ The year was 1995. And my moniker ‘Majekobaje’ came from a brainstorming session we had in The Group (that was the name of the political group I belonged to). We needed to come up with a name that would capture what I stood for. So maybe the former governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Fashola, ‘plagiarized’ ‘Eko o ni baje’ from us. 😂😂.
It was a gruelling contest of four candidates. I was the youngest—just 20 years old at that time. I ran a campaign that took the whole campus by storm. I had almost all the ladies on campus on my side. 😀
Long story short, I lost the election. The margin of loss was just 56 votes. It was very close until the very last polling box. I still remember the anxiety that permeated the vote counting process. I lost to my dear brother, who coincidentally is from my hometown.
It was very painful. I saw how many of my supporters who gave their all were broken. Some wept openly. Many could not come to campus for weeks.
I was broken myself. It was a contest that took so much from me.
While brooding over my loss, I received a letter. Those were the days when we received letters from the post office, as there were no emails then. It was a letter from my secondary school seatmate.
She was in another university in Ondo State but had learnt that I contested for the election. In the letter, she reminded me of how I used to tell her that I would be president of the Students Union when we were in SS3.
She wrote that though I lost, she was proud of me. That was the elixir I needed. I knew I had to throw my hat into the ring again.
I believe failure is never final. Failure is a teacher—if only we are willing to learn. According to Denis Waitley, ‘Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.’
Failure is never final. It's a teacher—if only we are willing to learn. Share on XFailure even teaches better than success. I recognized that failure is another opportunity to begin again more intelligently. So I gave it another shot the following year. I reviewed the possible reasons for my failure because if you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
I rebranded and created a new identity for myself by wearing a tie and suspenders. I made sure my campaign was more inclusive. I worked harder than the previous attempt.
This time, I won. It was a landslide victory. Six of us vied for the position, but I had more votes than the other five candidates combined.
Success after you have tasted the bitter pill of failure is very sweet. So don’t give up. If you fail, try again.