Paying the prize…

The bell rang and for sure, it was not the closing time. A coarse voice followed immediately, summoning us to the hall. We met pupils from other classes rushing also to the hall. All the teachers were seated, including Mr. Gbanigo, our teacher. That was in 1948, my first year in primary school.

Our Headmaster, Mr. Paul Anya, called out Eke, a pupil in Standard Four, which was the highest class in our school. Without emotions, he announced that he stole an exercise book, using razor blade to cut-off the owner’s name. ‘You are dismissed from school for stealing,’ he said. The senior boys led him home, singing that he was a thief. That was the academic end for him. He later learnt tailoring but all through his life, stealing remained his hobby. He was also a deviant in the society until 1963 when he left for Lagos and nothing had been heard about him, even when his mother died.

Something was wrong in his life but what was it, as his parents were not like that? Could it be that, as the only child, they allowed him to be having his ways all the time? Some parents rationalise that if they reprimand or beat their children, they (the children) might die. The Bible says that if the rod is spared, the child is spoilt. He may grow up to be a menace to the society and a shame to his family. These are the children, who cause the early death of their parents. 

I watched a lady carrying a child. When the child saw hawkers who sold snacks, he told his mum to buy one for him, but she refused. He started to cry, kicking off anything around him until she was subdued to his fancy. He then stopped crying. After a while, I said, ‘Madam, I watched the drama between you and your son. You have equipped him for having his way. Nobody loves a child more than his parents. I guess that you had your good reason why you refused initially to buy the snacks for him. By succumbing to his threat, he now knows how to be getting things from you’.

A good lady, she got the message and thanked me. My ministration to her was from personal experience, being the last child of my mum and the only male. I loved to eat yam- pepper soup when I was a child. If my mother did not cook it, I could make her do so by feigning sickness. She would run all over my body with her natural stethoscope, her hand, and perhaps felt nothing, yet she would cook it. Woe betides me if she took me to Uncle Kanu. If he vanished for a while, I knew what would follow. For sure, he had gone for his syringe, which he hid in the bush because of the police. Soon after, he would be washing his needle, the same old and long needle that pierced through my buttocks last year! It would in fact be better not to feign any sickness! In 1957, during our PTC course at Ihube, we liked putting yeast in our soup and stew for taste. One of us told the doctor one day that his eyes were paining him and was given a small tin of yeast. That was it, we started going to the doctor for the same sickness and returning with yeast. One day, he gave one of us an injection. Jesu! We never complained again of eye problem!   

    Mummy, if she did not take me anywhere, would give me Epsom salt or quinine. Imagine their taste! The sickness one liked to suffer and easy to feign, was coughing because she would buy me fatty meat. If she took me to Uncle Andrew, the chances were that he would not give me Cod Liver Oil, which I liked for my rice, but M&B tablets with its stiff laws of not eating meat for weeks. If you did, you would die, so they said. Fearing that you could be given injection, quinine or M&B tablets, we stopped feigning sicknesses. 

Thank God that eating food in the dream was frowned at by our parents because it was reputed to be a way of being demonised. You could tell your mum that a certain black lady with long hair was offering you fried chicken in your dream. ‘Mammy Water? You ate?’ she would ask. ‘No,’ you would reply. A cock would be slaughtered, the family eating ‘nyafu-nyafu’, the larger slice coming to you. Your elder sister, to harvest from what happened, would tell her a week later that she was offered goat meat in the dream. ‘Mammy Water, again! You ate?’ she would ask. ‘No,’ she would reply. Your mum would buy goat meat that day.

‘No, no, I don’t want your shoes,’ your brother, a month later, might be saying when sleeping with your mum. ‘Who is giving you?’ she would ask. ‘One lady,’ he would reply. The next day, she would buy him shoes. Your eldest brother, a few months later, especially in the mid-sixties when black coat was in vogue, would tell your dad that someone offered him a black coat in his dream. ‘Did you accept?’ he would ask. ‘No,’ the youth would reply. ‘Please, accept it,’ your dad, to his surprise would say in anger. That would be the end of the cheap manner of getting things from the parents.

What happened? The youth knew the formula but not its nitty-gritty. It works on who is more emotional: dad or mum. Most men, like ‘LASTMA’ people, are not emotional except perhaps, towards their daughters. Some mums, who are not, may exhibit it where their sons are concerned. Most children know this and exploit it. Knowing that their dad believes that nobody will die if the school bill is not met immediately, will be contacting their emotional mums all the time. They find it tough when their dad and mum are on the same page. Some men might even rebuke their children for being offered something in the dream: ‘So you have carried this your-long throat to the dream? I know you will be a useless child’.

    Parents make much impact in children’s development if they have no favourites among them. If they do, as Isaac and Rebecca did in the Bible, the children will exploit it by making demands through the favourite ones. If something is done wrong, the favourite ones would claim responsibility.   

For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi:  0909 041 9057; [email protected]