When most 400-level university students are buried in textbooks, Mafeng Pwajok John is just as likely to be found measuring timber and fitting joints.
The 22-year-old Computer Science student at the National Open University of Nigeria has spent the past two to three years building a second identity as a carpenter, one that has quietly kept him in school.
Mafeng grew up in Jos, Plateau State, and belongs to the Berom community. Before carpentry entered the picture, he worked as an office assistant, but the pay left little room to breathe.
Carpentry changed the calculation entirely. On a regular day, he takes home between ₦10,000 (KSh 978) and ₦15,000 (KSh 1,467). A private contract can bring in around ₦30,000 (KSh 2,934). For a full-time student managing his own bills and school fees, that money carries real weight.
How a Doctor Became His Carpentry Teacher
The unlikely gateway into the trade was his uncle, a medical doctor who has also spent more than 15 years working with wood. In 2023, Mafeng began learning from him, starting from scratch. He admits the early days were hard.
Carpentry demands patience, physical endurance and a willingness to keep practising even when progress feels slow.
What kept him going was the combination of income and a growing sense that he was acquiring something durable.
The skill has taken him well beyond Jos. Work has brought him to Kogi, Kano and Abuja, exposing him to different working environments and broadening his sense of what the trade can offer.
Bigger Plans Beyond the Workshop
Mafeng envisions using his Computer Science degree to build a business around carpentry, starting with his own website to attract clients and eventually scaling into something larger.
In his words, the workshop is only the beginning. He dreams of building houses and contributing to industries, and he hopes the work will one day create opportunities for others.
His parents are central to that ambition. He describes them as his greatest motivation, the people who pull him back on course whenever he loses focus.
His uncle, beyond teaching him the practical side of the trade, instilled in him the value of showing up consistently and shaking off the habit of procrastination.
Currently, Mafeng is completing an internship at the Directorate of Information Technology and Digital Development at NTA as part of his undergraduate programme, an experience he says has connected him with mentors and opened up new areas of knowledge.
He is candid about the harder sides of the work. On construction sites, he has encountered discrimination rooted in tribal and religious differences, including an incident where work was deliberately destroyed following an altercation over such tensions.
He acknowledges these frustrations without letting them define his path.
“It is not always bright outside,” he says, but he remains clear about what drives him forward. “The word give up isn’t in my dictionary.”
