Myles Idoko Ojabo is a postgraduate student from Nigeria at AUT University and studied on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course.
He was a member of the APJ team that covered the 40th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) conference in Auckland in September. He writes on his blog:
I was born in Benin City, Nigeria, in 1983. Then, my mother was a medical student battling with studies while my father was in far away Zaria, Nigeria, working as a veterinary doctor, and expecting me to be born in October. The so-called fast telegraph system of communication then, wasn’t enough to alert the father that his baby had been born on September 16. The veterinary doctor met his baby a month after he had been born.
I had always loved writing and reading fiction. My parents thought guiding me through the sciences was a better option. I didn’t read medicine or veterinary medicine as my parents might have wished. Instead I ended up reading fisheries from the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria. As an undergraduate, I started a campus magazine, Spectacles, which promoted literature and entertainment. I was also a one time president of a campus writers association.
I published my first novel, Shambles of a Predicament, at the age of 24. The novel tells a story of two men respectively struggling to cope with the adversities of homosexuality and HIV dilemmas.
Myles is currently a volunteer with the PMC.