Are You Ready For This?

The Alumni Hall, a female hostel in Obafemi Awolowo University (O.A.U), Ile-Ife was always bubbling in the evening with a flock of males; trooping in with serious countenance like soldiers on Boko-haram eviction mission. Some you'll see, migrating from one room to the other. Their movements as swift as bees pollinating the apple trees at spring time. As a fellowship brother that was eagerly looking forward to signing a memorandum of understanding for an eternal contract, with 'that' pretty sister. It was only natural for me to constantly visit my farm, to clear the weeds that could damage my crop. As I got to the doorstep of my "sister's" room this very evening. One of my classmates, who was also resident in the hostel, caught me. "Enh enh Joe! So this is how you always sneak into this hostel and crawl out. Don't you know I stay here?". She shouted. "Sorry, what's your room number? I'll quickly check on you before I leave". I a...

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in Ile-Ife. We just got back from church, where my immediate elder sister just saved me from one of my biggest stage performance flops during the children's choir ministration (a story for another day). We lived in a small flat, planted in a serene communal environment , where neighbours borrowed matchsticks they would never return. The entrance of the house welcomes you into the living room, which inturn ushers you into a passage-way that leads to the other rooms. This passage-way, day and night, was always dark. The reminiscence of which still traumatizes me like Mtshali's Night Fall in Soweto. A darkness so intense and hazy that you could almost touch its essence. By one side of the wall in the passage-way, lied a monster lurking in the gloom for its prey: my father's old Honda Belly Motorbike. All members of the family had mastered the way through this shadow of death. Only an intruder would fall prey, and jam the snake in the monkey sha...

There was a strong social division between the senior members of staff and junior ones within the Obafemi Awolowo University (O.A.U), Ile-Ife, community; where I grew up. Everything was dichotomized in this social order. We had the Senior Staff Quarters and the Junior one. Children of the senior staff attended O.A.U Staff Primary School, popularly known as Staff School-owned by the University. While the children of the junior staff attended O.A.U Primary School, popularly know as U.P.E (Universal Primary Education)-owned by government. A school used by S.O Awokoya, the then Minister of Education(Western Region), as a failed experiment for teaching Mathematics in Yoruba language. My father, though later became a senior staff, was a junior staff when I started primary education. So I attended U.P.E, and I learnt ARITIMETIKI KINI, IKEJI, EKETA (Arithmetic 1, 2, and 3), from my primary one to three. Nevertheless, I thank my stars my mum did not allow our dad keep us in that Junior Sta...