It is actually kind of hilarious when I think about it.
I can craft smooth pickup lines for friends that work way better than they should (seriously, do not ask me for receipts, that is classified information).
Back in school, I could write speeches that had the whole class or LIT members feeling emotional. I spend half my life writing technical documentation that explains complex API integrations to very confused junior developers. I have even ghostwritten slick, professional blog content for clients whose platforms I built from scratch.
I have written millions of words for everyone else. But whenever it came time to write something real for myself?
Crickets. Total 404 Error. Page Not Found.
It is the classic "the cobbler's children have no shoes" syndrome. I have been so busy architecting other people's digital dreams and debugging their nightmares that I completely neglected to narrate my own story. I was the ghost in the machine, making sure everything ran perfectly while remaining totally invisible.
But today feels different.
You are reading this on a platform I architected with my own two hands.
- I wrestled with the Django backend logic.
- I got into a fistfight with the Cloudinary API just to make images upload correctly (we made up, mostly).
- I stared at DNS records and A-records until my eyes crossed just to ensure that little green secure SSL lock appeared in your browser bar.
This isn't Medium. This isn't WordPress. This is my house. I poured the foundation, I framed the walls, and I wired the electricity. So it only feels right that the first real words hanging on these walls should be mine.
The System Crash (The Part I Don't Talk About)
Getting to this point wasn't just about mastering Python or figuring out React hooks. It was about surviving the stuff bootcamps don't warn you about.
I am talking about the real darkness. I am talking about the kind of career trajectory that looked less like a rocket launch and more like a car crash in slow motion.
I poured my soul into LIOZIO Companies. And when I say "poured," I don't mean I worked hard. I mean I worked 24 hours a day. I stopped existing as a person. I already dropped my personal freelance clients. I had already stopped taking new projects. I ignored my personal life until it withered away.
I went six months without pay.
Six months. While I was building systems and leading teams, debts were piling up. I was drowning. But the worst part wasn't the money. It was the misalignment. The people sitting on the Board with me, people I trusted, people I thought had a vision that aligned with the organization's goals, well, they had a 'vision' alright, that was drifting so far from the mission we started with. The alignment was broken. The betrayal was quiet, but it was loud enough to break me. I was also going through a breakup (I'm so angry and done with ladies, lmao).
And then, I resigned.
Resigning wasn't just leaving a job. It was an amputation. I walked away with nothing but burnout and debt.
The "Geography" Error
You would think that with my skills, bouncing back would be easy, right? Wrong.
I sent out job applications into the void. Silence. No response. Then, finally, the successes started coming. I crushed the interviews. I passed the technical tests. I got the "Welcome to the Team" emails.
And then came the asterisk.
- "Oh, you reside in Nigeria? We can't move forward."
- "We need someone who can relocate immediately."
- "Do you have a Green Card? No? Offer rescinded."
I had onboarding processes canceled after I had already started celebrating. It was a loop of hope and crushing disappointment. And just to add some spice to the suffering, let's toss in a brutal relationship breakup too. The kind where opening up VS Code feels like trying to bench press a truck because your chest is so heavy.
There were plenty of times I wanted to just git reset --hard on my entire life and walk away. It was brutal. I won't sugarcoat it with toxic positivity. It hurt.
The Reboot
But here is the thing about being an engineer.
You eventually learn that critical failures and system crashes aren't the end of the world. They are just data points. You look at the logs, you find the root cause, you patch it, and you optimize the system so it doesn't happen again.
All that suffering? That was just stress-testing my infrastructure. It proved I can handle a massive load without total system collapse.
I survived the resignation. I survived the six months without pay. I survived the rejection emails. I survived the heartbreak.
I am still here. The server is back up.
So this is me declaring that the maintenance window is closed. Going forward, the trajectory is upwards. Going forward, we head straight toward success, no matter how many bugs try to stop us.
Welcome to my platform. The Code Warlock has finally arrived(for himself this time, lol).
