December 3, 2023 NewsOrient
By Dapo Thomas

When a teacher tells you to wait for him in the staff room after committing an offence, you should just go into a silent prayer session or begin to speak in tongues inwardly before his arrival.

When the “go-and-wait- for-me-message” is from a teacher like “Mr Cane” , you will need GOD to intervene timeously and decisively. If possible, physically not just spiritually. Mr Cane’s record on forgiveness and mercy is not romantic at all. Yet, he was one of the teachers preaching to us on sundry topics during the morning assembly.

Of all my gang members that had been summoned to the staff room before now, none had come back in peace but most, if not all, had come back in pieces. And as a regular “visitor” nay, offender, to the staff room, my buttocks had become accustomed to the miscellaneous whipping ammunition of all the teachers, including some female teachers who just felt like beating me for the fun of it.

I wish every woman was like my great-grandmother. She never beat me for the 14 years I stayed with her. Her indulgence of me was legendary. Though some people believed she was the one that spoilt me by sparing the rod, I disagree with this presumption. True, iya Ibadan spared the rod, but she never spared the word. All her homilies that never had any effect on me when she was alive began to have meanings in my life immediately after her death.

All the beatings of Mr Cane that I am recollecting today did not have the moral power and tutorial value that Iya Ibadan’s indelible teachings have in my life today.

When I sit down to reflect about my past, I only remember the lessons and words of iya Ibadan and not the scars of Mr Cane’s canes.

As a child, and even as an adult, the scars left on my body by the canes of Mr Cane and the blades of Alfa Ligali are, in my view, regarded as the souvenirs of torture and the insignia of the barbarity of men with power.

But Iya Ibadan’s regular allocutions are now like a mantra etched on my mind like an eternal creed. These preachings which had little or no appeal to me then had converged to form the philosophical contents of my life’s moral code today. So powerful that a mere recollection of them brings a surge of tears from the recess of my heart.

That woman was an angel that I never cherished in life but came to adore regrettably, only in death.

Immediately Mr Cane entered the staff room, I decided to be a good boy in the face of cane. He sat down and started narrating to other teachers how he just flogged some pupils who were playing football when it was not yet break time.

I thanked GOD I was in the staff room otherwise I would have been one of them because it was a rarity for me to be absent at any crime scene within the school.

Sometimes, I would be there deliberately and other times I would be there accidentally. Whichever one, there was always the willingness and the excitement to be among those who contravened school rules.

People saw us as tough guys to avoid and we too derived tragic pleasure from the fear of the wimps.

Mr Cane, for the first time in his life, dropped his cane on the table and began to talk to me like a father. Inside of me I was happy that finally, everybody had started showing me some respect because of the delegation that followed me to school.

That’s the way it should be, respect begets respect. At the end of Mr Cane’s admonition, I wanted to fake penitence by prostrating for him as a sign of unusual gratitude but it didn’t work for me.

Suddenly and shockingly, as I prostrated to say thank you sir for your advice, I heard him scream with euphoric authority “Mo like position yen. Le mo le” , that is, I like the way you are. Just stay like that on the floor. I stayed glued to the floor as he had commanded. I have never seen this kind of opportunistic appropriation in my life. How can a man who just lectured me on good behavior flog me in an act of gratitude meant to impress him as a decoy for self-reproach?

I got six lateral lashes from his cane before I disengaged from the floor. It was when I stood up that I discovered that my walking was orthopedic and one-sided. I couldn’t walk straight again. I can’t say whether it was the hunger that was responsible (remember that I said I had not eaten!). Or, it was the lateral flogging. All I could say was that my movements were unnecessarily psychedelic. It was as if my right sandal had lost its heel while that of the left was still intact. It was a “tálá ntolo” kind of walk. “Tálá ntolo” was a walking style invented by a TV clown called Papilolo of the Jacob and Ajimajasan fame.

For coming to school with eminent personalities of my community and with my 84 year-old great-grandmother to beg the Headmaster to rescind his suspension order, Mr Cane turned me to “Papilolo” on a very bright afternoon.

What could be more cruel than that? When did appeasement and the spectacular visit of senior citizens to a school become a punishable offence in a school that is meant to work on the salvation of the soul of the reprobate?

As at the time he flagellated me, the name of the school was still Salvation Army Primary School. Even if it was changed to Salvation Navy Primary school, he shouldn’t flog me because the keyword there is salvation.

By the time I got back home, it was only Iya Ibadan I met at home. I was glad. It was a deliberate strategy to delay my arrival so that there won’t be anybody at home apart from Iya Ibadan that would want to add insult upon my injury, particularly my mother.

It didn’t take my great-grandmother up to 30 minutes to suspect that something was wrong with me. One or two movements to her room, the next thing I heard was: ” kilo mu e nìdí to nredi bi obinrin?” She wanted to know what happened to my bumbum that I was walking like a woman.

She wanted to know if I was involved in any trouble again in school. With tears flowing and rolling down my face, I told her that a teacher beat me for bringing a delegation of elders to the school to beg the headmaster.

Iya Ibadan hardly saw me cry. Immediately, she stood up from her bed to go to our neighbours to ask for ice blocks. She assisted me with the massaging by applying the ice blocks on my ruptured buttocks. After massaging with the ice blocks, she rubbed the oórì (Shea butter) on top of them.

By 6pm, I had started preparing the ablution water for those who were going to break their fast by 7pm. Mr Cane’s “physi-cane” assault on me happened in a period of repentance. It was during the Ramadan. May GOD have mercy on him.

My great-grandmother volunteered to provide ablution water for the improvised mosque organized by Alhaji Raji just for the fasting period.

So, it was my duty to make sure that all the 70 plus bottles used for the ablution were filled with water once it was 6pm. By 6:45pm people had started doing ablution and were already sitting on the mats waiting for the muezzin to come and call people to prayer since it was almost 7pm.

Instead of me to mind my ablution business, I decided to go and play the role of the muezzin in front of the Adewales house facing the East as Alfa Gani normally did.

As I opened my mouth to shout “Allaaaahhhhhhuuu…….” I had not said the “wakbaru” before a heavy slap landed on my right cheek. Till today, I didn’t know the identity of my “slapper” because I just ran straight towards Biney Centre to assess the extent of damage done to my cheek and my right ear.

At a stage, I thought I would not be able to hear again because the slap was recklessly hot. On top of what? Because I wanted to do the work of GOD. In one single day, I suffered two simultaneous physical abuses that were capable of distorting the reality of my structural anatomy. They slapped me in Ilelogo, I sprinted towards Hogan Bassey, a distance of about 100 metres, with “rabbitous” rapidity. I didn’t bother to come to the house until all those who came for the “gada” had gone to their different homes. Gada was like “sara” (a spiritual generosity or ritual intended for us to acquire an inclination for the solution to our problems).

The food for the “gada” was provided by Alhaji Raji for so many years before his death. Every night, we used to gather -possibly that was where the name “gada” came from – in multitudes in front of his house, sitting in different groups on the mats to eat for the 30 days the fast would last. Assorted foods were served in big bowls during the fasting period to all those who wanted to partake in the “gada” irrespective of your fasting status and your personality.

Apart from that, there was another type of “Sara”. It was a private one done by individuals. I was a chronic partaker and consumer of “sara”, especially on Fridays.

We would start from my house in the morning with ” corn mosa”, a kind of puff-puff fried with overripe plantains, provided by iya Ibadan.

Then we moved to Iya Foluso’s house where we would be served bread and fanimorous stew with hot tea.

In the afternoon, we would shift base to the Ajikanles who would serve us hot rice and chicken and quickly to Alhaja Noibi’s house thereafter. She too would serve us rice and goat meat.

For dinner, we would be served tuwo by Iya Fausa, Alhaji Raji’s first wife. In those days, communal feasting was an integral part of supplicatory conciliation. No one prayed to GOD without making provision for “sara” .

Little children like us who were the major consumers of the “Sara” were seen by the adults as innocent emissaries of GOD that could help to facilitate the answer to their prayers.

But modifications in contemporary spiritual practice have given our role to prayer warriors hence the disappearance of “Sara” in our spiritual life as a means of placation.

Besides, in this day and age, who will allow his children to partake in any “Sara” rendezvous? Even as an active and ever-present consumer of “Sara” in those days, I cannot allow my children to eat “Sara” in anybody’s house. I am sure that even if I tell my children to feel free to eat “Sara” in our neighbours’ house, they will think that something is wrong with their daddy.

Meanwhile, in our days, our parents were the ones that would motivate you to go and scout for a “Sara” centre at home and abroad so that you would save them the trouble of cooking or spending scarce resources to buy food from street vendors.

In my own case, I kept a very comprehensive “Sara” schedule from Shitta to Ojuelegba, at least, I made sure I covered substantial square metres of the entire Surulere.

I always loathed the day I missed any “Sara” . Why? Because I would end up eating small ration of beans with about 2 pints of water and 2 tins of garri. We used to call it “konkere” because it’s like the mixture of gravel and cement used for the decken of a 3-storey building.

Honestly, life was fun then. Nobody knew what was called poverty. As children, we just thought our parents were being creative with culinary concoctions. We never knew there was economics and mathematics of poverty.

Personally, I didn’t know the difference between what I was eating and what other children were eating because of the informal food exchange programme that we were always doing in form of begging that was interspersed with “oju keji iya mi.”

Ironically, the very first time that I knew there was any difference between rich and poor children, was in my school and in my house. I almost wept but I pulled myself together until tragedy struck. (To be continued).

Dr Dapo Thomas’ Diary: From Primary To Tertiary, Here Is My Diary is serialized here every Saturday.

Photo Credit: Channels Television

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