…CONTINUED
…The screeching of tires is heard and the scream of a young
boy. In a bid to manipulate his way out of the traffic jam, Monsuru without
been careful enough almost knock down a young boy hawking oranges. At this
happening, some people around give a loud shout, some others place their hands
on their heads, while some are raining curses and abuses on Monsuru for been
reckless and a few others are blaming the boy for not looking carefully before
crossing the road. But to say the fact, this is a road that if you try to be
too careful watching the vehicles for the time when the road will be free you
will never cross because this is a road that will never be less busy.
Just like we have
in the movies, attention is focused on James who is lying down on the stretcher
and whose fate cannot be predicted because the hope of getting to the hospital
early cannot be said.
He takes a deep breath and tears roll down his cheeks as he
gives a deep thought to what make him a victim of the ambulance.
* * * * * * *
James, the only son of Chief Desmond
Daniels.
Chief Desmond Daniels is the sole owner
of the multi billion naira company named DANIELS AND SONS GROUP OF COMPANIES. A
business mogul, rich, influential, humble in disposition, God fearing and
cheerful. He is happily married to Janet. He is a good manager of monogamous
home with a good sense of humor, and loved by all.
Mrs. Janet Daniels is a very pretty
woman, also a figure in the business world. She is a beautician and manages
JANET HOME OF BEAUTY. Her rich beauty shop is a place where virtually every
woman and lady who knows the value of beauty visits. She is doing really great
in her business. As a wife, she is always supporting her husband to be the best
and as a mother, she is playing the role of a good mother. She is also God
fearing that she devotes three hours of each day for prayer and three days of
then week to fasting. She is as well very active in church that she attends all
church programs schedule for weekdays as well as Sunday service. It is because
of this devotion that she was made a Deaconess in the church, a Sunday school
teacher, bible study superintendent as well as the leader of the good women
association of THE GREAT GOSPEL CHURCH.
James, being the only child is spoilt
and pampered as he gets all he wants as far as he can ask for them. He attends
the best primary school in the country i.e. GREEN PASTURES nursery and primary
school.
All his life, he has never travelled through a public
transport because there is always a standby driver who takes him every where he
wants to go.
After his primary
school education, he made known his desire to study outside the country but his
request was not granted because his dad wants him to study within the country.
This left him with no option than to take the common entrance examination in
secondary school within the country after which he was offered admission into
federal government college, Badosa.
When Chief
Desmond handed the admission letter to James, he was so excited that his face
was just covered with smile and laughter wishing that he was going to resume
the same day he got the admission letter. That night, he found it difficult to
sleep as he was just imagining himself resuming in his new school with his new
uniform, friends and a new life as his dad had promised to send him there as a
boarding student.
Federal government
college, Badosa, is a government owned school known for its high academic
standard as the students always come out with outstanding results compared to
other secondary schools within the country. A lot of parents believe that the
students are very disciplined and the hostel facilities are just the best as
advertised on the television.
On the resumption
date for freshmen and stalites, excitement and great joy fill the minds of the
fresh men as they shine their teeth to the air in laughter and admiration to
the school environment. So many parents came with their children. For stalites,
they were not really happy as the thought of ‘God, we are back in this lions
‘den.’ Lions’ den indeed. This is because the picture most parents have of the
school is different from what is really experienced by the students. This is a
school where the difference between the school hostel and an abandoned building
is the fact that people are living in the hostel.
The buildings are so bad that no one can imagine that it is
human beings that living there. The windows are bad with no burglary proofs,
the toilets are so bad when used, they leak. This has left students with no
option than to resort to defecating either in the bathroom either in the
bathroom or the toilet corridors. The bathrooms are so bad that when the people
upstairs are having their bath, the water drains to the bathrooms downstairs,
the electrical supply is so epileptic that within two months, they can be
fortunate to enjoy the light for a week unfortunate to have it in just two
days. By the time the light is made available; it will be so low that a candle
light will be brighter than it.
Although taps were made available to the school in order to
ensure that students enjoy adequate water supply, the taps are just there
because for years, not a drop of water has come out of any of the taps. In
order to console the students, wells were dug but the availability of water was
seasonal as water was always available during the rainy season but scarce
during the dry season. Is it the high level of criminality? that is ,theft of
materials or the inhuman treatment the junior students undergo in the hands of
their senior counterparts that would bring smiles to the face of the stalites or the food which is not
different from what criminals eat in prisons where the food is not well cooked,
is it the thought of the teachers who would just come to school and sit under
the shade drinking beer, jesting, talking and making love advances to female
students as well as asking students to pay in order to get promoted to the next
class? Or about the school principal who is not always around because of other
businesses he is into? Why will the stalites laugh when they knows that if he
falls sick, it is either he just lies down in the hostel and naturally feel
well or go to the health centre where his sickness will get more complicated.
Like an incidence that happened the last time before they went home for the last break where a
student fell sick and was taken to the health centre, after going through
series of tests by the Doctor on duty, he was given an injection which was not
for what was wrong with him. His life was cut short as he died prematurely.
This incidence created fear in all the students and everyone either prefers to
just lie down to naturally feel better or embark on self medication. Those and
many other factors were responsible for the stalites non smiling faces.
Chief Desmond, his
wife, James and one of his cousins got into chief Desmond’s Lincoln Navigator,
the boot filled with James’ school things, which included two boxes,2 buckets,
a mattress, a pillow and many other school materials.
As they approach the school gate, James excitement rose to
the peak. He was shining his teeth and staring at every building he saw within
the school. As chief Desmond drove to where new students were asked go in order
to get checked and cleared, James became very much excited as he saw a large
number of other freshmen.
After staying for over two hours, James was finally checked
and cleared. Since parents were not allowed to go to the residential area of
the school, it was time for Chief Desmond his wife and James’ cousin to leave
for home. It was now that the reality of the fact that he was not going to see
his family again for the next two or three months dawned on him he then burst
into tears, hugged his mum who had also started shedding tears. The dad hugged
the two of them. As they were still together, an SS3 student named Richard
walked up to them after introducing himself, he made his intention of becoming
James’ ‘school father’ who would take care of him in the absence of his
parents.
‘School fatherism’ is
a system adopted by students especially secondary school senior students where
they will act like the parents since the actual parents of the junior students
in their care are not around. They prevent other seniors from bullying them as
well as they provide for the needs of the junior ones in their own little ways.
*********************************
Relief has taken over
every ones face as after spending so many hours in the traffic jam, they have
finally gotten out of the congested road.
The journey continues smoothly with Monsuru increasing the
speed of the ambulance. Still in the world of thought, James is lying with his
head facing up.
*************************************
On getting to the
hostel, he was directed to the room he was allocated to. As he entered the
room, he felt irritated by how dirty the room was, the large number of
occupants compare to the size of the room, to worsen the situation, was the
fact that the metal bunk where James was allocated was very rust. Richard
noticing the disgusting look on James face assured him that he would soon adapt
to the system. Richard helped James to arrange some things he needs to know
about students’ life in the school especially the way to comport himself when
dealing with his seniors. While the both of them were still talking, an
announcement was made by the room head on behalf of the house captain that a
welcome party had been organized for the new students and kicks off by 8:00pm
after dinner.
Later that night
at the dining hall, James and a few other new students could not eat the food.
For James, it was because the food below the standard of what he eats at home. The sight of the food made him
nauseate. The hostel is a two-storey building where Jss 1 – 3 students occupy
the ground floor while SS 1 – 3students occupy the topmost floor.
As early as 7:30pm, junior students were already sitting at
the venue of the welcome party which was the back of the hostel.
The venue was
well decorated making the hostel more beautiful than it really is. Everyone was
present including the house master- Dr. Diamond. Within a short while, the
program kicked off. It was fun fair as it was a avenue for the freshmen to meet
and inter-relate. For James, it was more than fun fair because he had never had
such kind of experience before. To crown it up, there was enough to eat and
drink.
At exactly 2:30 am,
the program came to an end. Most of the new students over fed themselves that
some of them of them could not sleep while some one like James just layed on
the bed taking a flash back into all the events that characterized his day.
Just like some one
stung by a scorpion, James suddenly jumped off from his bed and raced down to
the toilet.
To celeberate with
the freshmen, the school management decided to repair one of the toilets in the
junior block and locking up all others.
As james got to the
toilet, to his surprise, he met a long queue of other freshmen like him waiting
patiently for the student in the toilet to come out so that the next person
could go in. In a short while the person in the toilet finished and the next
person went in. not long after the next person went in, a senior student rushed
to the toilet from upstairs. As he got to the toilet, he boycotted the queue
and rushed to the door of the toilet. This made the junior students grumble
because there was no light in the toilet enough for them to know he was their
senior.
As
he got to the door, he pulled it. Noticing it was locked from within, he banged
on it violently and shouted at the top of his voice ‘who is the bastard in the
toilet?’ The person in the toilet replied ‘I am not a bastard, may be you are’.
The senior student angrier, raised his voice ‘you are mad. Listen, by the time,
you come out of that toilet, consider yourself dead as I will flog life out of
your body.’ The junior student then replied, ‘I shall not die but live. It is
whoever wishes me dead that will be buried.’ This statement infuriated the
senior the more and he said, ‘your father is a bastard and you are a dead son.’
Then the junior student said ‘my father is not a bastard because I know my
grandpa and I am not dead because if I
am dead, you can’t stand and be talking to me now.’ This statement made the other
junior students burst into laughter which hurts him the more and ordered the
other junior students to lie down flat on the floor and promised to beat the
hell out of them for laughing. It was then they all realized the fact that he
is a senior student causing great fear in the hearts of the junior students as
some of them ask for forgiveness. ‘And for you in the toilet’ he continued, ‘
you are a dead man. The best thing for you is to live in that toilet forever.’
As he said this, the junior student came out of the toilet and did to the
senior what he never imagined would ever befall him through out his life on
earth. The junior student actually defecated in a bowl. As the senior student
raised his hand to give the junior student a hot slap, the the junior student
poured the feaces on the senior student’s face which left the junior students
laughing the more as they all run to their rooms leaving the senior in a
disgusting state and self hate.
… TO BE CONTINUED…
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