Once upon a there were two respected and feared teachers, in my third year (form 3) at the International School Ibadan.
The first was Dr. Ibeagha the reverend. Ibeagha was cool and well liked because he was easy-going. However, for those of us who were born trouble-makers, Ibeagha's bad side was to be avoided at all costs. He had this little habit of making you write, word-for-word, a chapter from the physics text book. I don't know what this was supposed to accomplish, but it kept many a trouble-maker straight during his class.
Those chapters in that boring physics book, Nelkon (and Lambert?), were not fun to write at all. Ah, but Nelkon and Lambert was the chemistry book, wasn't it? I think the physics one was Abbott. As my brain cells die off, children, it is hard to keep track of the olden days. But back to the teachers, the second was Mr. Avoseh. Mr. Avoseh, like Mr. Ibeagha, was a favorite of most students again, except the trouble-makers. Avoseh always began his sentences with some Edo-souding phrase which sounded like "Eh-ge-ne-ghe-bah-teeeeh..." and he taught Bible Knowledge (BK). Avoseh also had this nasty habit of assigning writings to trouble-makers, and it soon became common knowledge that his favorite assignation was Psalm 119--that longest Psalm in the bible.
Late form 2 or early form 3 (I forget which), I was the star among the young clique then. I used to break-dance, play the piano in block A, was a blue-belt in Tae Kwondo, and generally had props. I enjoyed this position of privilege. I liked the fact that I had supporters. I almost felt like a politician. Then came Kola. Oh, how I dreaded the arrival of Kola. A shiver runs down my spine when I remember his arrival. He was a direct challenge to my throne. Save breakdancing, he did almost everything else I did. But my claim to fame--Tae Kwondo--was also his claim to fame. Instantly he began trying to recruit followers for he, like I, had a need to be praised by those who feared Tae Kwondo. This was not good.
Within a couple of weeks of his arrival, it became apparent that my power was slipping. First I got into a fight with the quiet Dem Abdul. He pulled my own favorite Judo move on me, unprepared though I might have been, and word got around that "Abdul beat Gaga." This was not good. Then came Kola, boasting that he was soon to be moving to "brown belt" at the club in Poly. Oh, this was definitely not good. I knew something had to be done when even the little peons started disrespecting me. And Kola grew in stature.
But God was not finished with Kola yet. As though to spite me, he was made class captain of Mr. Ibeagha's class and was assigned the task of writing down the names of noise-makers when Ibeagha was not in class. Now he had real power! Within weeks, low-intensity guerilla warfare had started. My clique slowly begun to abandon me, even my tightest pallies, after writing a couple of boring chapters of Nelkon and Ababio--that darned physics book. No, Ababio was chemistry, was it not? Just say no, children. And when I say "my clique" I do mean clique.
I'm talking about an all-encompassing clique. Folks like the massive Soyemi (who later joined David Koresh in Waco), the likes of Ladipo, and even the awon boys always made it a habit to stay on Kola's good side. He was one of them--an honorary awon boy. Even I didn't get that far. By the end of the "first term" I had been almost decimated. Kola had captured all my territory and he was now the happening one. Boys listened to HIS fabrications, and not mine. Boys wanted to hear about HIS Tae Kwondo club not mine. I was depressed.
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