Lady Reveals How Eating Banga Soup At The Back Seat Saved Her Life...

This is so deep and a must read.....

In this post, even though she details what happened, you will also not miss the message she tried to pass with what she shared.....

Read and understand.....

𝗜 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗜 𝗪𝗮𝘀 𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝘁.

𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘴 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯.
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰.

I almost died on my way to a PhD.

I survived because I was eating banga soup in the back seat.
Years later, the sudden death of a young woman brought it all back.
This is about survival, discernment, and why I now guard my space fiercely.
When I read of the sudden death of Ifunanya Nwangene, a young, talented singer in Nigeria, reportedly from a snakebite, my body reacted before my mind could reason.

My chest tightened. A familiar heaviness returned. It was not only grief for her life cut short, but the quiet resurfacing of a memory I rarely visit without my breath shortening.

Some memories do not announce themselves. They wait, and then they knock.
In 2016, I secured a fully funded PhD scholarship to the United Kingdom, emerging top from my state. It was a season of fierce hope, the kind that makes the future feel promised. I had waited for that journey with a full heart.
In February 2017, I packed my bags and said a painfully long goodbye to my three little children, and to other dear ones living with me at the time. My husband drove me to the airport.

𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱.
At Igbogene, everything fractured. Tyres screamed. Metal collided. A tipper driving against traffic burst into our lane and crashed into us. One moment we were travelling. The next, the world folded inward. Even now, the memory tightens my chest. Some moments never truly pass.

I survived only because I was seated at the back. Our car had airbags on the driver’s side only. Ordinarily, I would have been in the front passenger seat. But I had not eaten, and to avoid starving while in transit, I packed banga soup and moved to the back seat to eat properly. Just after I finished, before I returned to the front, the crash happened.

My husband survived because his airbag deployed instantly. On the passenger side, where I should have been, there was no airbag. Thankfully, I was at the back seat, yet, my chest slammed violently into the seat ahead of me. There was internal bleeding. There was pain, but I survived.

The journey ended there. I had already checked in and could not cancel the tickets. I missed my flights from Port Harcourt to Lagos, and onward to Newcastle. I was in severe pain, but even worse psychologically. I was traumatised. My body and mind were not ready to travel again for nearly a month.

 The PhD paused before it began. Years later, I would complete it. But first, I had to stay alive.
Looking back now, I am struck by how quietly life can tilt. How suddenly a future can narrow to survival alone. Ifunanya's ended without warning. Mine almost did. Life often hangs on margins we cannot see. I could have died that day. I did not. God preserved my life.

In the years that followed, certain truths became unavoidable. I realised that some people I had shared my space with were not who I believed them to be. On their own, perhaps they posed no harm. But the places they moved through, their closest, and the environments they returned from carried risks I had underestimated.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲.
I learned that danger does not always arrive with hostility. Sometimes it enters through familiarity, through access, through association. Discernment, I learned, is not suspicion. It is responsibility.

𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿, 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀.
I lost one baby in the womb and carried the other to term.
My second pregnancy brought my daughter early, at seven months, weighing just 1.7 kilograms. I spent months beside an incubator instead of returning to write my law school examinations.
These were not failures or choices.
They were accidents of life.
Yet my body learned fragility long before my mind had language for it.
Much in this world remains unexplainable.

But this I know: 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿.
The easiest way to harm a person is often through proximity. Through food. Through shared rooms. Through the quiet places where we sleep, eat, and lower our guard. Since that accident, and the clarity that followed, I have learned to guard my space fiercely.

Before then, I was freer. More open. Too willing to listen to pity stories. Too quick to open my doors and my home, sometimes, years on end.

𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲.
My heart rests with the family of the young woman who died so suddenly. No words soften a loss that comes without warning. May her light not be reduced to the manner of her passing, but remembered for the life she lived and the joy she gave.

Life does not always announce danger with noise.
Sometimes it passes quietly through a meal, a familiar room, a trusted presence.
𝗦𝗼 𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲.
𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.
𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁.
Love generously, but choose carefully.
Be kind, but remain watchful.
Because while accidents may be sudden, 𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲.
And staying alive, staying whole, is sometimes 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭.
God be with us all

By Ebi Johnny Okoro