CUT YOUR COAT ACCORDING TO YOUR CLOTH.
Ngozi Okongwu was the only child born to her poor parents. Mr. and Mrs. Okongwu. The family was so poor that it hardly provided food and clothing for Ngozi. The family was wallowing s wallowin in abject poverty and therefore could not afford to h send Ngozi to school early in her life. The family was later helped by Mr. Okongwu's childhood friend who volunteered to sponsor Ngozi to school.
Ngozi was registered in a nursery school very near her parents' house. Her father's friend, Mr. Collins sponsored her education right from nursery school through secondary school. Unfortunately, while in secondary school, Ngozi joined a group of friends who came from rich families. She was keeping the company of these spoilt children from rich homes while forgetting her poor background. In a short time, Ngozi realised that her parents could not afford to get her the kind short of things her friends had. In her quest to live up to the standard of her rich friends, she decided to steal. Initially, she began to steal money from her classmates' bags. Before too long, she began to steal from her teachers handbags and later she became a 'professional' thief who can pilfer out of daylight.
After a while, Ngozi began wearing clothes made b e y the latest designers and, in most cases, this entered her head and she started disrespecting her teachers and elders. All this while, her parents were too busy trying to earn a living by farming. However, they started noticing all the make-up their daughter was applying and how snobbish and disrespectful she had become. They knew that something was wrong. Her mother searched her room and found all sorts of expensive clothes. Ngozi's parents decided to question her to find out where she had got all the things found in her room. She got angry with her mother and left the house. She wondered why she should be questioned that way and out of annoyance, she decided to leave her parents' home for her friends'.
One fateful day, Ngozi was in need of a beautiful and expensive dress to wear to a party which she had agreed to attend with her boyfriend...She had no money, and so, she decided to steal one expensive and colourful dress she had seen at a shop on Adeniyi Jones Street in Lagos. She got ready on this day and off she went. On getting into the shop, she looked around for the dress. She stealthily walked to where the dress was hung, picked it up and put it in her bag hurriedly. After doing this, she thought nobody had seen her and she made for the exit door.
At the door, a security man was always there to check people leaving the shop. He had seen Ngozi picking up the dress but he was not sure whether she had paid for it. As Ngozi was about to go out of the shop, the security man accosted her and demanded to search her bag. Ngozi was found out and after she was beaten mercilessly and the stolen dress collected from her, she was taken to a juvenile home where teenage offenders are kept.
Ngozi's friends were nowhere to be seen. Her parents had to go to the juvenile home to see her when the news of her arrest and detention reached them. As Ngozi saw her parents, poorly clad in their wretchedness, she burst into tears. Her mother said to her "Ngozi, if only you had cut your coat according to your cloth, you wouldn't be here now."