Chukwuma Ezeani, born December 2 2002 in Lagos, Nigeria. Born into a family who thrived and firmly believed in education. His dad being a Journalist and Newspaper Editor and mum, a civil worker. So at an early age he knew there was no room for complacency. With three siblings, an older and younger brother as well as a twin sister who he came into the world with. After moving out of Lagos in 2007 to Abuja the capital city of Nigeria. Chukwuma attended Kindergarten and shortly began elementary school. He described Abuja as “The start of his life” because memories prior to that were quite vague. Growing up was not easy for young Nino Ezeani as he often felt alone, lost and not in place. He once described himself as being “the black sheep of the family” this was due to all his siblings getting along but not him. He would often be on his own, do things by himself, get left out conversations and activities, things that would make one a very timid and secluded kid growing up. His earliest form of competition came between him and sister all the way from grade 1. They would battle each other for first place and whoever came second usually felt like the biggest loser. After the first couple of years he began to fall behind to his sister with no exact reasoning, “she simply just started working harder” he said. It hurt me so much then but now I talk and laugh about it and it does not bother me but back then I was a mess and it affected me, my parents did not make it any easier for me as they would get her gifts and all I would get was a do better or you play too much.” It remained this way for a huge part of his childhood but he soon began to find joy in writing. His dad was a journalist as mentioned earlier so every home he ever moved to his dad would have or create a mini library with dozens of books, newspapers and other articles. Young Chukwuma would go into the library and browse these books for hours picking up the ones that caught his attention. He grew to love authors like Chimmamanda Ngozi Adiche, famous for her books Purple Hibiscus, Americana and Half of a Yellow Sun. There was Chinua Achebe known for writing one of the greatest books in Nigerian literature, Things Fall Apart. And last but not least there was Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel Prize winner who wrote The Trials of Brother Jero. A book Chukwuma says changed his life. He was also influenced by western books and authors as well and not too long he began writing his own books in his spare time. Young Chukwuma would buy a 60 leaf book and begin conjuring a story, most as fictional as you could imagine but he would write and write. He eventually finished one and then another and he would beg his dad to publish them for him but he never did. Chukwuma love for writing ultimately decreased and he began doing other things. A year after graduating high school, he moved to Toronto, Canada with two siblings leaving the youngest at home with his parents. Few months after arriving in Canada Covid 19 hit and everyone went into lockdown. He claims this period as one of the worst in his life. “I did not believe in depression till the pandemic hit”. A year after he moved to Oshawa a smaller city in Ontario where he went to study Computer Programming and after six months, he called it quits. He decided to change to a business major, his reason being “I felt like I was slowly dying, sitting behind a laptop coding, locked at home, not understanding anything and not being able to talk to anyone or make friends. I wanted to quit college entirely but I was an international student and I did not have an option, I would have been sent back home. It became so bad I really did not care anymore really, and I told my dad this and he was furious” Chukwuma chuckled with a low smile on his face. “I remember vividly, I told my mother first because I had a much better relationship with her so I would always tell her everything first and then she would soften it and tell my dad. She told my dad this and we did not talk for basically the entirety of 2021 summer. He was not having it but I had already made my mind up, I was not going back to college as a programming major, I wanted to do something that felt different everyday, something that gave me life and a purpose. So I switched to business Marketing.” The program started off slow but he got a hang off it, meeting new people, exploring and showcasing his creativity through presentations, sales pitching and connecting. This is when the dream of Real Estate came up however, he knew he did not want to be a salesman or real estate agent, he wanted to take his love for real estate around the world documenting and capturing it through tours and interviews, so he did.
