I don't like it when people come up to you and start asking about things that does not concern them, like 'whose child are you or how many siblings do you have or what would you like to be in the future?' Just keep your lips shut. That's what I've learnt. Think about it, what good can knowing do them or you?
Last year when the first term began in September, one of the corps members engaged our class in a dialogue, all about what we would like to be in the future. There wasn't a lot going on that day. It was only the third day of school for the term, and my first. Timetables were not out, the teachers weren't paying us any mind so we were left to our own devices. And then this overzealous corper came to spoil our rowdiness. Everyone seemed quite excited about the exercise. I was not fooled though. You should have been there. Then you'll see that all of JSS 3B of Government College, Bomadi was made of doctors, mechanical engineers, barristers and business executives, except for six or seven persons. And we number seventy-eight in that class. That loud mouthed boy, Bouna stood up and said 'corper' and those of us who knew, shook with laughter.
"No. 'Corper' is not a profession. That is just a scheme you pass through if you're a graduate of an higher institution in our country." Corper Eze explained.
When he picked me out to have my say, I stood and bit my tongue. And then something seized me and the words came out, without refinement or definition.
"I want to... Carpenter."
"Come again. Did you say..."
"Carpenter". I repeated. The laughter was a chorus; a long, loud one.
"Alright everyone. Listen!" Began the instructor, raising his voice. "That is enough. I want you all to understand, alright. We are talking about valid and realistic career options here. You! Don't make me get my cane. It's fine you know, for you to want to be a footballer or a musician like Wiz Kid or an actress. But let's discuss real professional aspirations, so you get it right early..."
All I was thinking about then was how I had certainly slammed a new nickname on myself. I'll regret that. Because in this world when a boy receives an unsavory alias like carpenter or grass eater, it sticks forever. But I knew what I was doing. I am not the one they are going to catch saying what is really on my mind. If I had said the real thing, that would have been bad. It's like someone holding out to you your unwashed underwear that you'd left carelessly on the bed or somewhere. This has happened to me you see, when I didn't know any better.
That was during the holidays. I was minding my own business in the shade of the baobab tree with my sketchbook and a beetle and the microscope I bought for One hundred naira. Of this sketchbook, I have decided to fill with as much of the languages of biology as it can contain. Now the rest of Sundays after church are mine and to tell the truth, I don't appreciate being disturbed then. But the person that was calling for me that Sunday was Bro Timidi.
His father is mummy's uncle. I don't know if that means cousin or something else but he was in town to visit his mother. But everyone would do girations over him because he belongs to everyone. Bro Timidi has finished university and he is a doctor. Last year Christmas, he came with a shiny new car. We were all disappointed that we couldn't hop on the car with him this time, and ride through town and to nearby villages, showing our teeth through the windows. But he explained that he didn't feel up to doing the long drive from Ado-Ekiti and took a bus instead. That hour of Sunday, Bro Timidi was gracing our house with his presence. About the whole neighborhood crowded our small balcony, along with all of my siblings except Powei who was out with mummy, and myself. That's the way ants gather where there's sugar to worship.
"Hmm, Preye the big boy. Come let's talk abeg." Bro Timidi said when I went to him.
"Let me see this your sketchbook... This is good. Wow! Ehen." He flipped through the book, looking closely at the drawings and smiling while all the children jostled about him, trying to look into it.
"Easy, easy my people. You should not get Preye's book torn oh, or I'll join him and break your heads. Preye I am envying you right now. Tell me, you want to be a doctor, you want to do something in the field of the sciences?" Everyone was staring at me. I was the star. Some hands were on my shoulders. To be honest, I felt light in the head like a balloon. Someone was showing real interest, someone worthy and so I answered:
"No. What I want to be is, I want to be a scientist, I mean an inventor like Thomas Edison." I saw that name in this big book at my friend Tamarakuro's home. That was years ago. There are all sorts of things in that book, like how the stars that are so small are like the sun, except they are very far away from us, and about geysers which is the ground throwing up hot water in some parts of the world. I loved the book and I used to spend all day in their house with it, and Kuro would be saying I'm not any fun and he'd go away and forget me in his own home.
"And I want to be a reporter. No, a news anchor on CNN like Isa Sesay." I know about her from color TV. We have one but there's never electric power and the our generating set is just junk. It coughs to life about three times a year and we would have sold it to Sam last year, but mom says the amount he wanted to pay for it could not even buy a pinter of garri and that we'll have to manage because she isn't selling it just yet and not to a greedy mechanic. But Pa Egberipade has a color TV with a big generator and if you are a kid that greets and you run errands for him, he'll let you into his neat house anytime from 6pm to 8pm and watch TV with him and Ibunabo and Sele who are either his grandchildren or his nephew and niece. I am not sure again. All Pa Egberipade's children are big and living in bekebou- cities, and they come down here once or twice a year. So his place is more than a few stone throws from ours but I don't like to miss time at that house. We only watch the programs Pa likes. There's Discovery, Nat Geo wild and CNN and other news channels. I go there about once a week now.
"And I want to be a president." I said brightly. "The president of a country like Kennedy, John Kennedy or Julius Nyerere." You see, when I started getting ideas about what my life should be when I'm an adult, it was being a president that I thought of. No, I don't remember why, except that it must be the only thing worth being when you are grown up.
Bro Timidi was looking at me with glossy eyes. I couldn't understand the expression on his face and suddenly there was an explosion from his mouth. Bro Timidi is an interesting person to be with and he laughs a lot like someone who is never unhappy but I had never seen him laugh like he did that day. He almost fell with the chair he was on and that chair was sturdy. Now it makes noises when you're on it. I was disappointed because I used to think he was a very dignified person. But what was worse was that all the kids had joined in on it, chattering away as if they had a reason to.
"Abei, no kill me with laugh. Ah Preye! But what about a rapper ehn, a rapper like ehn Olamido or... Or Drake?
I shook my head, "No."
"Please, take this money and buy airtime for me. Glo, you hear. Thank you. Ah, Preye Preye!"
That is what humiliation means. You understand? Anyways, what happened that day just had me thinking about the things a certain somebody said to me once in the workshop. I don't know why, there is no connection between the events. I was in the workshop and there was no work to be done then. Okay, I ought to tell you, I am an apprentice carpenter at this shop where my daddy used to work. I started just after the third term examinations. That one is another story. There I was, strolling home excitedly with my friends, fantasizing about the long holiday, the respite from school and all school wahala and the very interesting things I would do with my time without knowing what was waiting for me like a green snake poised on a tree in the bush, waiting to strike. Well, not that I was completely oblivious about it. Mummy had put me through the idea a week or two ago, after some busybody person had adviced her on that course. But I was expecting that I would at least be allowed to drop my bag and take off my school uniform on the day I finished my examinations before being dragged to that awful place.
So I work at that shop, running about for nails and glue, handing hammers and pincers to the real carpenters. Like I said, this was the same place my daddy used to do his work. Well, now I have to lift heavy, smelly sawn bits of wood about the whole place. It's what I do, morning till it's dark, Monday to Saturday. I hate the drill but you know what mummy says? She says:
"The good thing is we didn't pay anything for this, just a few drinks."
Have I gone far from the main story? Well, since there was nothing to do at that time, on that particular day which doesn't happen often, I decided to pick up this book I bring along with me everyday. It was a story book about some people that can create fire just like that and move things they want to be moved without touching them, and some other people that can see things that are not in front of them. Sele lent it to me. It was difficult to get the story at first because many of its pages were missing but I loved it and I used to take peeps at at it whenever there was a blank space at work. That was what I was doing that day when the particular somebody confronted me.
"Abei! What is this? Is this what you should be doing, wasting time? Come on, would you put that away. And get out of here before I change my mind". I was skulking away when he said:
"Come back here. You don't know anything Preye. Why? You should be serious with this craft. Your father has gone away. Playing with book things is not what you need. Or do you think something will just fall from heaven and help you and your mother. Your father has left you people. I do not tolerate irresponsibility, do you hear me. If this happens again abei, you will know something. Now go and find something to do," He ordered in a tone that would have given pigs in a pen some shock, if there was any close by.
"Tidy up those things by Ete's table..."
Now I do not know if that's why Bro Timidi laughed so hard, because it is improbable for a boy whose father has left to want to be a scientist and a TV anchor and a president. There are four of us: Dise-ere, Lagos-ere, Powei and myself. You would have guessed by now that I'm the first child and that means something. It's why I have to learn carpentry quick. Mummy tries. We help her at a kiosk in the center of town, cooking noodles and selling.
"Things are not going to be easy for us now." Mummy said after daddy went away. Daddy traveled. Whenever I heard people say he left us, I didn't use to understand that. He told us all he'd be away for a week. Two weeks passed and he was not back. He could not be reached on his cellphone. Then a month passed. Mummy started traveling a lot herself, meeting family and all daddy's friends that she could reach. Four months passsed and no daddy. Mummy stopped crying at night.
I know I am not a good boy because I was supposed be very passionate about my daddy coming back to us, but I wasn't. To be honest with you, my daddy was strict like something you don't like to remember. We don't speak too loud when he is around. We move about on tiptoes. And don't touch any of his things mistakenly. You'll just die. I used to wish my daddy is not someone who only comes to life when the theme of conversation is Nigerian politics. He doesn't say alot to us, except when he is giving orders. And if the conversation is a long one, there is usually a reed cane to go along with it.
Well, no one heard anything about him until Mama Ejiro who had been out of town for some time came to our house and reported that daddy was living in the city of Benin.
We had to have him back with us, so mummy took me along to that city. What I remember about that trip was this- embarrassment. We found him at the end of a quiet street with lots of trees. I remember seeing him sitting with his back bent and doing mortise on some logs of wood. A woman sat on a stool above him in the workshop. I ran up to him the way eleven year old boys run to their fathers whom they've not seen for a long time and called 'daddy'. I think I might have hugged him if it wasn't for the absent look on his face and the angry look on the woman's. He didn't say a word. Mummy joined me and started her drama. She is an Ijaw woman, you know. Mummy pulled at him, asking what had come over him to abandon four children and a wife. She rolled on the ground, she wailed but that street was a lonely one basically, so no one came out to pacify her and make judgment and settlement. Daddy and the woman did not pay her any mind either. They both went inside the house adjoining the workshop which I supposed was the woman's. Mummy banged at the door maniacally and minutes later the woman opened it and mummy bulled inside. In her wake, the woman was threatening to call the police. Mummy came out of the house, her wrappers flying and bawling at the woman:
"Where is my husband you witch, where is he? You are a witch. Where did you hide him? "Gbafade, so you are not a man. You abandon your family and now you have run away again. Run, just run. Myself and Preye, we are not leaving here." She grabbed a stool and sat, her cheeks swollen with excitement.
"We are not going anywhere." And we didn't. We slept out there in the open workshop that night and the next, beside the house daddy was living in, even though we could sleep at Aunty Ebi's place. She was a member of our church and had recently moved to Benin with her family. We had to go back there. Two days later we gave daddy another surprise visit. Only, he was not around. No one was. Eventually, we had to leave Benin, without daddy.
Our uncles went there and came back unsuccessful as well. They said he'd chased them away with a hammer. They told mummy she would have to manage and that they would help any way they could. They said their brother had always been a little mentally unbalanced and that there was witchcraft at work as well. "But," said they: "He'll come back."
It's been almost a year now since he left, and daddy isn't back. When he does, I hope I can say all the things I have been thinking to say to him. Well, I am writing all this because of this assignment Sir Esanma, our English teacher gave us. First term has gone and it's not been easy for me, I tell you, doing wood things and school. Just yesterday Tamarakuro was saying to me:
"People will not be calling you carpenter again now that you are the best student in all of the Junior Secondary School section." Look, I don't even mind. So Sir Esanma's project is this: 'An essay about what you want to be in the future'. He has been spending too much time with Corper Eze. You know, I didn't want to do it at first. School resumes tomorrow and I had to decide. So I wrote it. If you care to know, this is the summary of what I wrote:
'I have to be an inventor and I will design things that would do great stuff for people just like freezers, computers or tractors. That aside, I will be a journalist and I will anchor Television programs on CNN or Channels or some other news channels. This means I would be travelling to many places and I'll meet different people and I will be able to say things as they are.
Then when the time is right, I will contest in an election and be the president of this country. That way, I will build good roads, and look good in fine clothes and people will like to shake hands with me. I will build companies and farms, and electric power supply will be permanent and strong, and there will be jobs and the Police will no longer take N50 from drivers and people will be safe.
Yes, I have to be a president. But before I become an inventor, a news program anchor and a president, I will be a furniture maker. Not a carpenter, a furniture maker. That way, I can take care of my mummy and Dise-ere, Lagos-ere and Powei. And I will be able to go to the university.'
That is it. You think I mind? I don't mind if Sir Esanma collapses with laughter when he reads this. I don't.
Glossary:
Abei : Literally interpreted as 'This boy' in Ijaw.
Beke-bou : A city or town bearing
the trappings of. civilization.
Story written Tenane Faotu.
Artwork by: Leon Zernitsky.
Last year when the first term began in September, one of the corps members engaged our class in a dialogue, all about what we would like to be in the future. There wasn't a lot going on that day. It was only the third day of school for the term, and my first. Timetables were not out, the teachers weren't paying us any mind so we were left to our own devices. And then this overzealous corper came to spoil our rowdiness. Everyone seemed quite excited about the exercise. I was not fooled though. You should have been there. Then you'll see that all of JSS 3B of Government College, Bomadi was made of doctors, mechanical engineers, barristers and business executives, except for six or seven persons. And we number seventy-eight in that class. That loud mouthed boy, Bouna stood up and said 'corper' and those of us who knew, shook with laughter.
"No. 'Corper' is not a profession. That is just a scheme you pass through if you're a graduate of an higher institution in our country." Corper Eze explained.
When he picked me out to have my say, I stood and bit my tongue. And then something seized me and the words came out, without refinement or definition.
"I want to... Carpenter."
"Come again. Did you say..."
"Carpenter". I repeated. The laughter was a chorus; a long, loud one.
"Alright everyone. Listen!" Began the instructor, raising his voice. "That is enough. I want you all to understand, alright. We are talking about valid and realistic career options here. You! Don't make me get my cane. It's fine you know, for you to want to be a footballer or a musician like Wiz Kid or an actress. But let's discuss real professional aspirations, so you get it right early..."
All I was thinking about then was how I had certainly slammed a new nickname on myself. I'll regret that. Because in this world when a boy receives an unsavory alias like carpenter or grass eater, it sticks forever. But I knew what I was doing. I am not the one they are going to catch saying what is really on my mind. If I had said the real thing, that would have been bad. It's like someone holding out to you your unwashed underwear that you'd left carelessly on the bed or somewhere. This has happened to me you see, when I didn't know any better.
That was during the holidays. I was minding my own business in the shade of the baobab tree with my sketchbook and a beetle and the microscope I bought for One hundred naira. Of this sketchbook, I have decided to fill with as much of the languages of biology as it can contain. Now the rest of Sundays after church are mine and to tell the truth, I don't appreciate being disturbed then. But the person that was calling for me that Sunday was Bro Timidi.
His father is mummy's uncle. I don't know if that means cousin or something else but he was in town to visit his mother. But everyone would do girations over him because he belongs to everyone. Bro Timidi has finished university and he is a doctor. Last year Christmas, he came with a shiny new car. We were all disappointed that we couldn't hop on the car with him this time, and ride through town and to nearby villages, showing our teeth through the windows. But he explained that he didn't feel up to doing the long drive from Ado-Ekiti and took a bus instead. That hour of Sunday, Bro Timidi was gracing our house with his presence. About the whole neighborhood crowded our small balcony, along with all of my siblings except Powei who was out with mummy, and myself. That's the way ants gather where there's sugar to worship.
"Hmm, Preye the big boy. Come let's talk abeg." Bro Timidi said when I went to him.
"Let me see this your sketchbook... This is good. Wow! Ehen." He flipped through the book, looking closely at the drawings and smiling while all the children jostled about him, trying to look into it.
"Easy, easy my people. You should not get Preye's book torn oh, or I'll join him and break your heads. Preye I am envying you right now. Tell me, you want to be a doctor, you want to do something in the field of the sciences?" Everyone was staring at me. I was the star. Some hands were on my shoulders. To be honest, I felt light in the head like a balloon. Someone was showing real interest, someone worthy and so I answered:
"No. What I want to be is, I want to be a scientist, I mean an inventor like Thomas Edison." I saw that name in this big book at my friend Tamarakuro's home. That was years ago. There are all sorts of things in that book, like how the stars that are so small are like the sun, except they are very far away from us, and about geysers which is the ground throwing up hot water in some parts of the world. I loved the book and I used to spend all day in their house with it, and Kuro would be saying I'm not any fun and he'd go away and forget me in his own home.
"And I want to be a reporter. No, a news anchor on CNN like Isa Sesay." I know about her from color TV. We have one but there's never electric power and the our generating set is just junk. It coughs to life about three times a year and we would have sold it to Sam last year, but mom says the amount he wanted to pay for it could not even buy a pinter of garri and that we'll have to manage because she isn't selling it just yet and not to a greedy mechanic. But Pa Egberipade has a color TV with a big generator and if you are a kid that greets and you run errands for him, he'll let you into his neat house anytime from 6pm to 8pm and watch TV with him and Ibunabo and Sele who are either his grandchildren or his nephew and niece. I am not sure again. All Pa Egberipade's children are big and living in bekebou- cities, and they come down here once or twice a year. So his place is more than a few stone throws from ours but I don't like to miss time at that house. We only watch the programs Pa likes. There's Discovery, Nat Geo wild and CNN and other news channels. I go there about once a week now.
"And I want to be a president." I said brightly. "The president of a country like Kennedy, John Kennedy or Julius Nyerere." You see, when I started getting ideas about what my life should be when I'm an adult, it was being a president that I thought of. No, I don't remember why, except that it must be the only thing worth being when you are grown up.
Bro Timidi was looking at me with glossy eyes. I couldn't understand the expression on his face and suddenly there was an explosion from his mouth. Bro Timidi is an interesting person to be with and he laughs a lot like someone who is never unhappy but I had never seen him laugh like he did that day. He almost fell with the chair he was on and that chair was sturdy. Now it makes noises when you're on it. I was disappointed because I used to think he was a very dignified person. But what was worse was that all the kids had joined in on it, chattering away as if they had a reason to.
"Abei, no kill me with laugh. Ah Preye! But what about a rapper ehn, a rapper like ehn Olamido or... Or Drake?
I shook my head, "No."
"Please, take this money and buy airtime for me. Glo, you hear. Thank you. Ah, Preye Preye!"
That is what humiliation means. You understand? Anyways, what happened that day just had me thinking about the things a certain somebody said to me once in the workshop. I don't know why, there is no connection between the events. I was in the workshop and there was no work to be done then. Okay, I ought to tell you, I am an apprentice carpenter at this shop where my daddy used to work. I started just after the third term examinations. That one is another story. There I was, strolling home excitedly with my friends, fantasizing about the long holiday, the respite from school and all school wahala and the very interesting things I would do with my time without knowing what was waiting for me like a green snake poised on a tree in the bush, waiting to strike. Well, not that I was completely oblivious about it. Mummy had put me through the idea a week or two ago, after some busybody person had adviced her on that course. But I was expecting that I would at least be allowed to drop my bag and take off my school uniform on the day I finished my examinations before being dragged to that awful place.
So I work at that shop, running about for nails and glue, handing hammers and pincers to the real carpenters. Like I said, this was the same place my daddy used to do his work. Well, now I have to lift heavy, smelly sawn bits of wood about the whole place. It's what I do, morning till it's dark, Monday to Saturday. I hate the drill but you know what mummy says? She says:
"The good thing is we didn't pay anything for this, just a few drinks."
Have I gone far from the main story? Well, since there was nothing to do at that time, on that particular day which doesn't happen often, I decided to pick up this book I bring along with me everyday. It was a story book about some people that can create fire just like that and move things they want to be moved without touching them, and some other people that can see things that are not in front of them. Sele lent it to me. It was difficult to get the story at first because many of its pages were missing but I loved it and I used to take peeps at at it whenever there was a blank space at work. That was what I was doing that day when the particular somebody confronted me.
"Abei! What is this? Is this what you should be doing, wasting time? Come on, would you put that away. And get out of here before I change my mind". I was skulking away when he said:
"Come back here. You don't know anything Preye. Why? You should be serious with this craft. Your father has gone away. Playing with book things is not what you need. Or do you think something will just fall from heaven and help you and your mother. Your father has left you people. I do not tolerate irresponsibility, do you hear me. If this happens again abei, you will know something. Now go and find something to do," He ordered in a tone that would have given pigs in a pen some shock, if there was any close by.
"Tidy up those things by Ete's table..."
Now I do not know if that's why Bro Timidi laughed so hard, because it is improbable for a boy whose father has left to want to be a scientist and a TV anchor and a president. There are four of us: Dise-ere, Lagos-ere, Powei and myself. You would have guessed by now that I'm the first child and that means something. It's why I have to learn carpentry quick. Mummy tries. We help her at a kiosk in the center of town, cooking noodles and selling.
"Things are not going to be easy for us now." Mummy said after daddy went away. Daddy traveled. Whenever I heard people say he left us, I didn't use to understand that. He told us all he'd be away for a week. Two weeks passed and he was not back. He could not be reached on his cellphone. Then a month passed. Mummy started traveling a lot herself, meeting family and all daddy's friends that she could reach. Four months passsed and no daddy. Mummy stopped crying at night.
I know I am not a good boy because I was supposed be very passionate about my daddy coming back to us, but I wasn't. To be honest with you, my daddy was strict like something you don't like to remember. We don't speak too loud when he is around. We move about on tiptoes. And don't touch any of his things mistakenly. You'll just die. I used to wish my daddy is not someone who only comes to life when the theme of conversation is Nigerian politics. He doesn't say alot to us, except when he is giving orders. And if the conversation is a long one, there is usually a reed cane to go along with it.
Well, no one heard anything about him until Mama Ejiro who had been out of town for some time came to our house and reported that daddy was living in the city of Benin.
We had to have him back with us, so mummy took me along to that city. What I remember about that trip was this- embarrassment. We found him at the end of a quiet street with lots of trees. I remember seeing him sitting with his back bent and doing mortise on some logs of wood. A woman sat on a stool above him in the workshop. I ran up to him the way eleven year old boys run to their fathers whom they've not seen for a long time and called 'daddy'. I think I might have hugged him if it wasn't for the absent look on his face and the angry look on the woman's. He didn't say a word. Mummy joined me and started her drama. She is an Ijaw woman, you know. Mummy pulled at him, asking what had come over him to abandon four children and a wife. She rolled on the ground, she wailed but that street was a lonely one basically, so no one came out to pacify her and make judgment and settlement. Daddy and the woman did not pay her any mind either. They both went inside the house adjoining the workshop which I supposed was the woman's. Mummy banged at the door maniacally and minutes later the woman opened it and mummy bulled inside. In her wake, the woman was threatening to call the police. Mummy came out of the house, her wrappers flying and bawling at the woman:
"Where is my husband you witch, where is he? You are a witch. Where did you hide him? "Gbafade, so you are not a man. You abandon your family and now you have run away again. Run, just run. Myself and Preye, we are not leaving here." She grabbed a stool and sat, her cheeks swollen with excitement.
"We are not going anywhere." And we didn't. We slept out there in the open workshop that night and the next, beside the house daddy was living in, even though we could sleep at Aunty Ebi's place. She was a member of our church and had recently moved to Benin with her family. We had to go back there. Two days later we gave daddy another surprise visit. Only, he was not around. No one was. Eventually, we had to leave Benin, without daddy.
Our uncles went there and came back unsuccessful as well. They said he'd chased them away with a hammer. They told mummy she would have to manage and that they would help any way they could. They said their brother had always been a little mentally unbalanced and that there was witchcraft at work as well. "But," said they: "He'll come back."
It's been almost a year now since he left, and daddy isn't back. When he does, I hope I can say all the things I have been thinking to say to him. Well, I am writing all this because of this assignment Sir Esanma, our English teacher gave us. First term has gone and it's not been easy for me, I tell you, doing wood things and school. Just yesterday Tamarakuro was saying to me:
"People will not be calling you carpenter again now that you are the best student in all of the Junior Secondary School section." Look, I don't even mind. So Sir Esanma's project is this: 'An essay about what you want to be in the future'. He has been spending too much time with Corper Eze. You know, I didn't want to do it at first. School resumes tomorrow and I had to decide. So I wrote it. If you care to know, this is the summary of what I wrote:
'I have to be an inventor and I will design things that would do great stuff for people just like freezers, computers or tractors. That aside, I will be a journalist and I will anchor Television programs on CNN or Channels or some other news channels. This means I would be travelling to many places and I'll meet different people and I will be able to say things as they are.
Then when the time is right, I will contest in an election and be the president of this country. That way, I will build good roads, and look good in fine clothes and people will like to shake hands with me. I will build companies and farms, and electric power supply will be permanent and strong, and there will be jobs and the Police will no longer take N50 from drivers and people will be safe.
Yes, I have to be a president. But before I become an inventor, a news program anchor and a president, I will be a furniture maker. Not a carpenter, a furniture maker. That way, I can take care of my mummy and Dise-ere, Lagos-ere and Powei. And I will be able to go to the university.'
That is it. You think I mind? I don't mind if Sir Esanma collapses with laughter when he reads this. I don't.
Glossary:
Abei : Literally interpreted as 'This boy' in Ijaw.
Beke-bou : A city or town bearing
the trappings of. civilization.
Story written Tenane Faotu.
Artwork by: Leon Zernitsky.
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