Dominion Okon @grandmaster

There is this young guy I met when I entered the university newly, he was in his final year, and he was the one who assisted me in looking for a house to rent. I entered his room once and saw about two to three awards of honor from different organizations, also saw that he was the president of his department’s association. I was thrilled by this kind of achievement by such a young guy, he must have been in his early 20s by then. He appeared to be very brilliant, I gave him a good rating.

His house was opposite my house, so I see him frequently. He came to me to borrow him some money, just one week after we met and according to him, he said he wants to apply for a job online and needs fund to process his CV and other requirements, he said the job was very important to him and that day was the deadline. The money I had was for my school clearance, I told him that and he promised to pay back in two days, so I borrowed him the money.

Two days passed and he didn’t contact me to pay my money, I contacted him on the third day and he gave excuses, I got money somewhere else and did the clearance. Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, the guy started avoiding me and I rarely see him, he will even pretend not to see me at times and I just gave up on the money. I wondered why a guy like him will turn out to behave like that, after a gave him a good rating, and with the kind of awards that hung on his wall.

There came a time that the region I lived in had some problems in the electricity for months, so there was no power supply through out that period. I used to charge my phone at a betting shop that is not too far from my house, every day when I return from school. It will shock you to know, the same way it shocked me to know that the guy that was owing me was an addicted gambler. He was always there at the betting shop every time I go there to charge, gambling with all the funds he has, I heard people say that the guy would have been very rich because of his position in his department as the president, if not for his addicted gambling. Now it became clear to me why he hasn’t paid me back.

Some months later, I heard that the guy had committed suicide, he used the department’s funds to gamble and he lost the bet, rumors has it that it was millions of naira. No way he could have paid back such amount and resorted to ending his life. Gambling leads to depression, frustration and more miseries, and that is how we lost him.

During my secondary school days, I attended a community secondary school, and it was located in an interior village in my state. Most people didn’t take education seriously over there, they just attended the school because their parents asked them to. You will see all kinds of behaviors from students that think and believe differently.

My first time in school was very frightening; a student stabbed his classmate with scissors, right in his eyes, and that was the first time in my life, that I saw blood gushing out of a human being like tap water. People using planks to fight themselves, and you won’t actually believe that I also got to see a student with a gun, the school was not that conducive when it comes to learning and security. I was very young back then and was really terrified of those things.

There’s a time that I went to urinate close to a bush during break time, I met a senior student there that was smoking, his eyes were literally red. After I finished urinating, he told me to come closer to where he was and I did, he stretched out the cigarette to me, and told me to join him. I refused, and when he wanted to use force, I ran back to my class without wasting anymore time. I bet he didn’t know me, otherwise he would have looked for me later on.

90% of my classmates and other students that I knew were either into drinking, smoking, cultism or worse, it was very hard finding a decent friend, so I never had any. Some of them didn’t write the final exams because of the mess they had landed themselves; they faced situations like unwanted pregnancy, imprisonment, and expulsion. Some had ruined their life with the type of friends they kept and the activities they got involved with, that even after secondary school, they can’t move on from those things.

The amusing thing is that I never felt like joining them or being a part of any of those things, because my parents always made it a routine and consistent thing to tell my siblings and I, about those things and their consequences. I feared the consequences more, so I never dared to get myself involved.

Based on a true-life story. There was a young lady named Ruth, she was born into a wealthy family. Her parents had six children, one male and five females, she was the fifth. Ruth never lacked, not even for once in her life, because of the wealthy family she happened to be born into, hence, never struggled for anything in her life, a fertile land to kick off on.

She attended a very expensive boarding secondary school, money was never her problem. On one occasion, her father had caught her with a guy in a bar during school hours, far away from the boarding school. Everybody wondered how and why she will sneak out of boarding school to meet a guy. She spent her secondary school days clubbing and partying, with the huge amount of money her father sends to her consistently. Ruth used to receive bunch of strokes from the parent and the elder siblings because of her reckless living, still she didn’t care. Her WAEC was nothing to write home about as she failed woefully. She had to register for the examination again the following year, in a school where examination malpractice reigned supreme, and that’s how she passed.

Ruth was sent to the university to read computer science, and as usual, she did not take it seriously. Seven years in the university and she has not still graduated from a four years course, everyone became tired of pushing her and gave up on her. All her siblings had graduated, and some were married, including the last born, but she had nothing to show forth. Her father was super worried and disappointed. She told her father about a one-year professional computer science course in Lagos, collected a huge sum of one million naira and left. Unknown to them, she took the money to go and start up a business with her boyfriend in another town. She soon got pregnant and made it known to her family, that she won’t be coming home and that she is with the man she wants to marry. You can sense the bitterness in her father, but she didn’t care.

One year after Ruth gave birth, changes began to set in; her boyfriend got a new girlfriend and brought her to the house to live with them. Ruth objected and the boyfriend emptied her bank account, collected everything she had and sent her out of the house without anything, not even her phone. She managed to find her way back home, but was rejected. Heavy depression and frustration came on her to the extent that she had a critical mental problem, she became half mad and refused to eat. Stayed in one position for days, crying always, and narrating her story to whoever cared to listen. Slimmed down as the days go by, and before anyone knew it, her light was out, Ruth died. A life that had all what it takes to be one of the best, wasted miserably by the life owner. She was warned, but she refused to heed to it, and ended like she never existed.

I remember when I was still preparing to write jamb, my parents enrolled me in a jamb class which starts by 4pm and ends by 6pm on a daily basis, excluding Sundays. Since it was not so far from home, I used to trek to the jamb and trek back home, and at times it will already be 7pm before I get home.

There is this narrow and long path my parents used to be very pissed off with, the path was known as ‘shear road’. The path was always very quiet with no houses around and you barely see people in it. My mother used to warn my siblings and I not to use that path, even in the day time, except we’re walking together with group of people. But as for the night, even if you’re walking with 50 people, my mother won’t still approve any of us to use the shear road.

Initially I used to say that she’s just stressing too much about the shear road and there might not be anything cruel related to it. She will counter by giving stories of the negative happenings she heard about the path, it will say it’s just mere stories and there is no evidence of who ever had been a victim of that lonely road. Even then, I had never for once used that path in the night, only in the day time, and with friends.

One day, I had a cartoon series, named ‘Dragon Ball Z’ that I really wanted to watch on startimes decoder, and the series was to start by 5:30pm and end by 6:30pm. I really wanted to watch that episode and wished I could skip the jamb class that day, but I couldn’t. I went for the class, and immediately it was 6pm, I packed my things and started running home to catch up with the remaining half of the already started episode. And then I came across the shear road, a very shortcut to get home faster, and without thinking I took the path. I was still running when two guys immediately stepped out of the bush and stood in front of me, it was too late for me to stop immediately and I ran into them and they felled to the ground, including me. I stood up before them, and this time, with adrenaline pumping through my veins, I ran like Flash, without looking back and with my school bag firmly held in my arms. I know I ran very fast, because my vision was blurred and the only thing I could hear was the faint shout from the two guys, “hey stop there, I will shoot you, oboy hey!”. I didn’t stop, I ran with all the strength I had till I got home.

I was so tired, sat down in front of the house and panting aggressively, checked myself to confirm if I was still intact, good thing the smart phone my parents bought for me was still in my pocket, the phone was barely a month old and I would have been dealt with if I had lost it. Whether those guys were truly with gun or not, I was home safely and vowed never to set my foot on that road. Entered the house and saw that the cartoon series I risked my life to run home and watch just ended as 6:30pm clocked, what a waste. I should have heed to my mother’s instruction about that road, good thing I’m safe and so are my properties. Till date, I have not told my parents about that incident, for the fear of being scolded for going against their orders.

Few years back, there was this neighbor I had that was a tailor, his name was John, he had just moved in newly. He rented a shop for his tailoring work just in front of his house, so he was always around. He was very friendly and easy to relate with, but it later turned out to be only a camouflage.

There came a time John came to borrow certain amount of money from me and promised to pay back in two weeks, I gladly helped him out. But then the two weeks came and passed, months passed and nearly a year, and he didn't still pay me the money back. He had lots of customers he sew clothes for, so he had the money, but I wondered why he refused to redeem himself from the debt.

Soon, John was no where to be found, he ran away from the town entirely and even changed his phone number, unlinked himself from all the friends and customers he had made while he was still here. Then I discovered I wasn't the only one John was owing, he had borrowed money from almost all the neighbors, including his landlord. He ran away with electric stabilizer and pressing iron he had borrowed from his friend. He took along with him, the clothes his customers had paid him to sew. People came out and lamented bitterly.

A year later, I heard about how John went to apply and get a contract to sew uniforms for an organization which was worth millions of naira. He entered the presentation room to present designs he had come up with. But then he quickly recognized one of the board members to be one of the people he had borrowed money and items from, and ran away with it some time ago. He knew for sure he wasn't going to get the contract, and so he made a move to turn back and leave immediately. But that was too late as the securities were asked to detain him and he was handed over to the police.

The man who arrested John demanded that John must pay him back, but John had nothing at the moment, he was very broke and even his family members refused to help him because he had duped them too. John owed so many people of which amounted to the sum of one million naira, and since he didn't have the money, but could sew very well, he was made to sew all the uniforms for the organization for free, under the supervision of the police. The sewing took him up to a month without a day's rest and he wasn't paid a dime. I was surprised hearing this. He paid heavily for his deeds, lost trusts, friends, and his reputation as no one ever wanted anything to do with him ever again.