I THOUGHT I WOULD BE KILLED ONE DAY

(The story of a child who didn’t have any reflection of what a better tomorrow is or any glimpse of a brighter future.)
First published on Feb. 02, 2023.

Some days back, I was having a chitchat with a youngster who saw me where I was exchanging words with someone in Arabic language. After a long discussion, he suddenly made a statement which I least expected from anybody. He said, “Alfa Saheed, I would like to be like you”. I replied him without hesitation as if I was expecting such from him. I said, “would you like to be like someone who had thought he would be killed someday as he didn’t have a reflection of a better tomorrow or a glimpse of a brighter future?” Dumbfounded and baffled by that interrogatory statement, he was looking like someone on whom death penalty has just been pronounced. It was as if I had prepared for that response. I replied him that way because I couldn’t fathom what it was that he had in mind before saying such. It was not the first time he would say it, though. I wonder how this youngster would have acted if he had met with me in the last fifteen years. He would definitely wish not to put on the shoes I off, even if his feet would fit into them. I have not yet proud of myself, not to talk of someone supplicating to be like me. Didn’t he know who Saheed was?

  The way I spent my childhood days was in contrast to how every other child is expected to have lived. It is believed that covetousness is a pandemic stifling the innocence of most children. But with proper care from the parent, it becomes an evening fable in the hearing of such a child. The likes of this habit is sneakingly walking into the kitchen where soup cupboard is situated and ‘pickpot’ pieces of meat out of it, eating out of the food you are probably sent by your brother at Ojúde (the junctions where food vendors used to sell foods), eating out of Mónu ( Moin-moin made from Egushi—some people call it Ìgbalọ̀) or Adalu that you are sent at Ìdí Àgbède and the likes. But the covetousness that I was infected with got out of hands to the extent that if I got any chance to operate,  I would definitely do—infact, by all means. Yes, I must.

  I was known in my vicinity as Alafowora (a kleptomaniac). There were even some kleptomania cases that I didn’t know about, but suffered for, due to my usual operations. Everybody was wondering why I was like that. Some advised my grandma to go out to my matter ( jáde sí ọ̀rọ̀ mi). These people didn’t know that I was battling with internally and naturally fabricated issue, and not any supernatural interference they could think of. My attitudes and ways of life then were borne out of many reasons.

  I was living with my grandma ( Ìyá pupa) then in Iwo, and my sister would frustrate life out of me. Should Iya Pupa try to give me food, she would throw it away and if she sent me food or even something as pathless as water, she would accuse me of taking out of it, even if, sincerely, she knew I didn’t. My case was the way it was simply because ‘The Knot’ that was supposed to take care of me was not carefully tightened. Had I also lived with someone I call “daddy” or “maami”, maybe my case wouldn’t have turned out in that way. Just maybe.

  When it was obvious that the suffering was unbearable, my uncle decided to take me along with him to his brother living in Osogbo. I overheard him discussing this with grandma. I didn’t wait for him to inform me before I started packing my beautiful rags. I stopped both Modrasah ( and was about to start Qoidah then in 2001) and school immediately. I didn’t care. I followed him to Osogbo. My joy swallowed my sadness, as I was happy that I was changing my location from that of ‘frying pan to cold water’, little did I know it was going to be an operation ‘from frying pan to fire’. I moved in with people who were not really my direct owner and whose tune I must dance to, no matter how odd and undanceable the beat might be.

  Here, I ask: what would be the outcome of he who stayed with the cigarette smoker and ‘Honourable’ drinker—the one who, when fire is lighted out of his cigarette, would send that dude in his care another filthy packets of “White and Brown London” and “Regal Dry Gin” or “Seaman Schnapps”? Yes, you’re right! I was that dude he used to send. I would run this errand without any choice. And whenever he got himself drunk, there would be no food for me and I must not mention the word ‘school’ in his hearing.

After a couple of days, I continued my primary school education at AUD, Isalẹ Osun, and my life—itself—experienced another life within this life. Everybody had known the newest kleptomaniac in town. No proper care. Affording a single meal a day was a problem. Another version of the lifestyle I lived in Iwo commenced till I did my Common Entrance Examination.

When I started my secondary school education, I was faced with another war. I was given admission to the school at the outskirt of the city, Christ African Church Grammar School, Ojúbo Ikùn, Abere area, Osogbo, and we were living at Ajobo street, Jaleyemi (those who know the places could imagine the distance). If I must go to school at all, I must have been done dressing up as early as Five o’clock in the morning in order to meet up for my walk-to-live journey to school. Failure to do so meant I wasn’t going to school that day. Even if I woke up early, I would be treated to no or unpresentable breakfast. And ‘If my head should implicate me’, I should wake up by 7:00am, no school that day, for any attempt to go to school that day would lead me to or land me on the farm as a latecomer whose punishment for arriving at school late is farming and cutting grasses till breaktime. It was far like!

  My school then turned to two to three times in a week. And despite my absentia in school, I was able to hold unto my brilliancy like it was the rope of life. This brilliancy in school earned me a recognition. I could remember the day I, alongside my colleagues, represented our school at Saturdays Television program titled ‘Taa l’ọga?’, shown on OSBC, we won against Nawairudeen Grammar School. On the second day when my name was pronounced and I was expected to step forward for a prize on the assembly ground, I was absent as usual; the reason being that I borrowed the belt and trouser I wore to the competition, so I had to wash it the second day and return it to the owner because, at that time, we were about to commence our ‘Junior WAEC’. That was already a norm in my life. Before that, I had been sent home many times for levies like lesson fee, P.T.A fee, etc., and I had nobody to relay that kind of message to. What would I say? Where would I expect him to get that kind of money? A struggling man who could do nothing but to accommodate me.

  I was on this condition of going to school as early as Five O’Clock, walking side by side with Mummy Anifa, my neighbour, who was returning from mosque after Solatu Subhi. She was baffled to see me in uniform and bag by that time. She asked, “Saheed, where are you going?” I answered her hurriedly, smiling, that I was going to school and I  wanted to trek. She was moved and surprised that what would have made me go that early. She confirmed to me that Anifat, her daughter, who was my classmate was still in bed that time and would not wake up until 7:00 a.m. I smiled and said, “Mummy, please let me be going”. She stopped me and did what my mother would have done for me if we were together. She promised me flask of food every day and thirty naira alongside. I was happy and felt like a king. I didn’t relay this at home because if I did, it might lead to what I wouldn’t be able to control. I started resuming at her house every morning. This continued until when palm oil dissolved the bean cake (àkàrà tú sí epo).

  This very day, I went to her as usual to take my food. Having taken the dish, I found my way out and suddenly when I got outside the boys quarter, I saw a Nokia 3310 phone on the verandah; instead of relaying it to the woman, the childhood spirit in me compelled me to take it to school to my colleagues. I told them I saw it on my way to school. One of them advised me to call any number on the phone and tell them I saw the phone, since I didn’t intend to steal the phone (steal again in my life). I did as he advised; we called a number, and a man showed up at the principal office. We gave him the phone and he appreciated me with two hundred naira. I thought I had become a talk of the town until I got home in the evening. I saw the man and he was surprised to see me. We were both shocked, but I greeted him for the money and ran away. I didn’t return home because I knew problem would have reincarnated at home. Problem did happen as Mummy Anifat and the man, whose wife owned the phone (he was a policeman), headed to our house to blast my guardian that if they had taken good care of me, would I be stealing. She even said if I was their son, would they be glad watching me go to school by that time. She made mention of all the secrets I have been concealing. Everywhere scattered as I became the talk of the town in another dimension. I didn’t go home for days. I thought I would be arrested and killed that day because that man was a police officer. Later, I returned home to face my series of punishment and continued living in that den. I resumed my school activities and all the aids stopped immediately because I dared not pass through the house of the woman who used to provide the aids for me. So, I returned to square one, until I later continued my senior classes at Osogbo Grammar School.

  After secondary school, there was no hope of going to higher institution. I didn’t even pass my WASSCE and there was no means to sit another exam.

All I knew was how to recite the Glorious Quran. Being on this, I heard there was a free computer training programme at immediate past Deputy Speaker Constituency Office.  I enrolled there and that was where I met minds that encouraged me to give it all it takes to win against life. People would come there to read Newspaper and discuss what was going on in the country, engaged in intellectual argument. It was as if I didn’t witness argument before. Everybody was holding at least a degree. I was highly moved but there was no money. All I gained was widening my horizon and dumping the shallow, narrow thoughts I took to that office. Along the line and out of no choice, I was motivated to go further in my Arabic Education. At least, if school was out of view, Modrasah should be affordable. So, I enrolled at Mubaarokah.  

  My First Modrasah fee was paid by a chemist whose nickname was “Small” at Idi-Omoh. He gave me two thousand naira when I told him I wanted to return to Modrasah. While at modrasah, I trained myself in Arabic typesetting alongside the English typesetting I knew, just to stand out amongst my peers who could only  type in English.

  After three years of joining Mubaarakah, I renewed my hope of going to school and embarked on that journey of reading alone. With the help of Allaah; then, with the help of ‘people like people’ (Eni bi eni), I gained admission into Obafemi Awolowo University to study Literature in English. Ever since then, I have been doing two businesses of knowledge and up till now, goat has not eaten anything out of the two businesses. Alhamdulillah.

  The Modrasah I started out of no hope of going to higher institution would be completed in some weeks. And the pursuance of Bachelor of Art degree in Literature in English I started when I was in Thaani Ihdaadi would also be completed in some months.
One thing I am still finding difficult to achieve and still praying to Allah to achieve is to see Mummy Anifat. I have not met with her till now since the last thirteen years. I wish I could see her today and thank her for being a resolution aspect of the plot of my story. Although I have not become that which I am currently aspiring to become, but there are some things I am able to see now that were not visible when I started the journey of life. Many that knew how I was made to live my life would not believe their eyes if they see me today. Someone saw me of recent and couldn’t control herself of tears of emotions; it was trickling down her face with full force. (Lols). The tears was not of disappointment but of surprise that contradict what they all thought I would become. She made me to know that many didn’t survive the storm I survived. The guardians who brought them up have thrown them to the community, and consequently, they’ve been turned to poisons. This has made them to conclude within themselves that they can no longer find themselves the realm of bright future, not to even talk of its superlative form.

I know that I can’t command Allah to elongate my life for this little time it remains for this storm to be passed, but I ask Him in His infinite blessing to let me have a tongue, moistened with praise, and let me be an iconic model for those whose stories are like mine or more brutal than mine.

In conclusion, this is just a tip of the iceberg. There are stories within the story I narrated but I deem them unfit to be out now. May Allaah spare our lives. Aameen.

Mutiu, Saheed Abiodun
(ALOWOESHIN, Al-Mubaaraqy)
B.A. Literature in English, OAU (in view).

NB: Bàbá is now officially a graduate in Literature in English. Alhamdulillah.

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