September 11, 2001
Harmattan
"You have 10 more minutes to go, you should start rounding off by dotting all your 'i's and crossing all your 't's, you will not be given an extra second to make any amendment. Remember to write your matriculation number on the space provided on your answer booklet and nowhere else, I only want to see your number and it should appear only once, I don't care if your surname is Jesus or Muhammad, I don't want to see it. Know that you are failing this course if I see your name" Professor Jasper bellowed in his British accent. His real name was not Jasper, it was Owinikoko Aberuagba, Jasper was his nickname right from his undergrad days and it had stuck because everyone found it easier to call him Jasper and he didn't seem to mind it. He was a no nonsense man and he was feared by students and respected by his fellow lecturers. It was EEE 311 (Electromagnetic theory I) exams and it was the norm that a lecturer, with the help of two or more departmental staff supervises his exams himself. Prof. Jasper would rather be doing something else right now than watching the students trying to tackle his questions, he was a consultant to a number of companies and he had other businesses at the sides. His hands were full. That was why the department always set his course to be the last on the exam timetable.
★★★
Siji was more than dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's, he was even backing the 'k's. He looked at his work for the umpteenth time and saw nothing wrong, but he still was not satisfied. ----what am I doing wrong?--- he asked himself. He used to trust his work, he used to take pride in his speed and accuracy, he used to only go through his finished work once before submitting and he would hardly find a single error, but lately he had not been trusting his accuracy, not with his CGPA dropping and moving precariously close to the border. He had been dropping steadily every semester since his saw his 200 level first semester results, he would not have bothered if everyone else was dropping, but that was not the case, a number of his classmates had overtaken him, including Pago. Pago was the one leading the class and Siji just didn't feel okay by that. He could not afford to fall below first class, although he had no one to answer to, he would be failing himself. He looked at his solutions to the four questions one more time.
★★★
Pago finished fifteen minutes earlier, he had gone through all his workings several times over, and he could find no error in them. Though he had not been able to answer all the four questions, he had done his best and was ready to submit, but he still could not submit, not yet, he had to wait. He looked at Siji who was seated about 6 feet from him and looking down at his answer booklet. Pago was sure that Siji was through too.
---come on Siji, what else are you looking at? Stand up and go and submit--- he silently willed Siji to go and submit, he could not afford to submit after the given time had elapsed, and he did not want to submit before Siji ---Come on Siji, Come on----
★★★
Just when Pago was about losing it, Siji stood up and walked to the front of the hall, submitted his booklet and walked out. Pago stood up just as Siji disappeared through the door. He submitted too and walked out of the class. As he exited the hall, he remembered that he did not write his matriculation number on his answer booklet so he rushed back in
"Hey you! What do you think you are doing" the Prof barked at him as he walked towards the submitted booklets on the table
"I'm sorry sir, I forgot to write my matriculation number on my booklet sir"
The Prof glared at him monstrously
"Did you forget to wake up this morning?"
---what has waking up got to do with this--- Pago thought but he said "No, sir"
"So how come you forgot to write your number? You know the implication? It means you didn't seat for my course"
"Sir I .......I was......" Pago stammered, trying to look for an excuse as Prof. Jasper turned his back on him.
After much pleading, the Prof. pointed at the table and said "Go ahead"
"Thank you sir" Pago said as he walked to the table. He wrote the matriculation number smiling as he noted the similarity between his number and Siji's. His own number ended with 8 while Siji's number ended with 3, those that fall between the two were in other departments in the faculty, hence he came right after Siji in the class list.
★★★
He met Siji outside waiting for him
"I thought I saw you coming out" Siji said as they both walked towards the halls of residence. Pago's car was at the repairer's in town.
"I was, but then I remembered I didn't write my matriculation number on my booklet, so I rushed back in. Professor Jasper gave me hell before allowing me to write it"
"Serves you right, you always forget to write your number, you may pay dearly for it someday"
"You can say that again bro, I almost did today"
"I don't know what it would cost you to always write your number first"
"I do, it's just that I sometimes forget. Whenever I see the questions, all I think about is solving them"
"That's not an excuse, answer booklets are given first"
"You know that's not always true, like today, we were given both the question paper and answer booklet at once"
"You are right there, but I feel you should still learn to write your number first"
"Yes sir" Pago said giving Siji a mock salute and they laughed. They both hated discussing their exams just after writing it so they walked silently side by side for a while, then Pago asked "how is Ese? It's been a while I saw her"
"She is fine, we haven't been seeing much of each other lately, the exams is keeping us both busy but we do speak on phone every now and then"
"And you could afford talking to her long enough on phone, I mean doing your love talk and all"
"She does most of the calling. You know I barely got enough money to buy this phone after I won the last scholarship"
"Yea, you'll rather spend all your money on study materials and send the rest to your Ma'ami than spend it on yourself"
It's because I saw getting a phone as a luxury I can do without, but Ese made me get it. She threatened that she would buy it for me if I didn't buy it for myself and I don't want her buying such a thing for me"
"Good of her, she seems to be really fond of you"
"Yea, and I'm quite fond of her too, we've been together for about a year now and it's still like we just started"
"I never can understand how you can stick to one girl for a year, Kalu too. Don't you guys have hormones? You are yet to know her right? Biblically"
"I don't get you, how do you mean?"
"Don't you know what it means to know a girl biblically?"
Siji smiled "it's strange listening to you talking about the Bible"
"Oh! I do read the Bible" then he corrected himself with a smirk "I used to, in high school, it was a missionary school so every student must read the Bible"
"Okay, so what does knowing a girl biblically mean?"
"Lemme explain like this, at some point in the Bible it was written 'and Abraham knew Sarah and she bore him Isaac' or 'David knew Barthseba and she bore him Solomon' maybe that's not exactly how it was written, but you do catch my drift, don't you?"
Siji could not control the laughter that consumed him, he started hitting Pago playfully and he too joined in the laughter "Bad bad boy. You are using the Bible to drive home your lewd point. We need to use bleach to wash your brain and mouth, they are full of dirt"
"Anyway, now you understand. So have you known Ese biblically?"
"No, I haven't known her biblically"
"Jeez! Don't tell me you've not even kissed or smooched or ....."
"I reserve the right to remain silent" Siji interrupted smiling
"You are a big spoil sport, I was having fun"
"My relationship with Ese shouldn't be your subject of fun" Siji said, then in other to shift the focus from himself, he asked "How is Stella? Hope you two are going on well?"
"We are cool, just cool. Like the others, she understands the rule, even more than Cynthia. Cynthia relocating to Port Harcourt was a blessing, she was becoming too complicated to handle. I was really looking for a way to drop her but her brother did it for me when he asked her to come over. And just about the same period, Stella gained admission"
"I never thought you will end up dating her"
"Me neither, you know, that night at the Lagbaja show, she was your date but you stood her up. She still believes you are gay and with the way you are playing it cool with Ese, I am beginning to believe her"
Siji intentionally ignored the jibe and asked instead "what about that friend of hers? Your date that night"
"Oh! Tina. She failed UME, she has left town sha, I really had some good time with them, I still have Stella though and she has proven to be better than both Tina and Cynthia"
"At least you're sticking to just one now"
"The hell I am, I have one steady for now, but I am not you, neither am I Kalu"
★★★
When they got to Faj, they noticed that the TV room was unusually filled up.
"Is there a soccer match going on?" Siji ask Pago
"Not that I know of, and I have never seen the TV room this filled, not even during the champion league finals or last year's Olympic games"
"Let's have a look"
They entered the TV room through the back door and could not move to the front for everywhere was occupied and most of the students were standing. But for their heights, both of them would not have been able to see the TV from where they stood at the back of the room. On the screen was CNN, which was unusual.
"When did CNN become Supersports? Pago asked no one in particular. Siji was not listening, his eyes were fixed on the screen, trying to read the breaking news at the lower part of the screen, he could barely read it because of the distance, "TERRORISM ON AMERICAN SOIL" then the white woman on the screen was saying. ".......... in Pentagon and one crashed in Pennsylvania, the twin towers of the World Trade Centre were the worst hit and casualty figure is estimated to be in the thousands........." the screen changed and the twin towers were shown as the planes crashed into them, then as the buildings started crumbling down
"Jesus!" Someone shouted in the front of the room then another voice said "these people have no value for human lives, heartless bunch of rogues." Siji tried to shut out the voices around him so he could hear the white woman on the screen "......... the terrorist group Al-Qaeda are suspected to be responsible for the attack............."
Pago was carried away by what was on the screen that he didn't hear his phone ringing
"Pago, your phone is ringing" Siji said, tapping him
It was Sike, his elder sister calling from the United Kingdom. She hardly called, she wasn't the kind to call for chitchat, she was too serious that Pago had nicknamed her Margaret Thatcher. ---why is Sike calling me?---
"I'd have to pick this call outside, the noise is much here and it's an international call" he told Siji as he walked out of the room.
10 minutes later Siji walked out of the room and saw Pago dialing his phone frantically as he walked up and down the corridor, he looked apprehensive, he looked scared, Siji had never seen him like this.
"Is something wrong Pago?" He asked as he walked towards him concerned
"It's my mum, she is in New York, she was at the World Trade Centre this morning, and now she can't be reached. No one in the family has been able to reach her."
★★★
Siji was more than dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's, he was even backing the 'k's. He looked at his work for the umpteenth time and saw nothing wrong, but he still was not satisfied. ----what am I doing wrong?--- he asked himself. He used to trust his work, he used to take pride in his speed and accuracy, he used to only go through his finished work once before submitting and he would hardly find a single error, but lately he had not been trusting his accuracy, not with his CGPA dropping and moving precariously close to the border. He had been dropping steadily every semester since his saw his 200 level first semester results, he would not have bothered if everyone else was dropping, but that was not the case, a number of his classmates had overtaken him, including Pago. Pago was the one leading the class and Siji just didn't feel okay by that. He could not afford to fall below first class, although he had no one to answer to, he would be failing himself. He looked at his solutions to the four questions one more time.
★★★
Pago finished fifteen minutes earlier, he had gone through all his workings several times over, and he could find no error in them. Though he had not been able to answer all the four questions, he had done his best and was ready to submit, but he still could not submit, not yet, he had to wait. He looked at Siji who was seated about 6 feet from him and looking down at his answer booklet. Pago was sure that Siji was through too.
---come on Siji, what else are you looking at? Stand up and go and submit--- he silently willed Siji to go and submit, he could not afford to submit after the given time had elapsed, and he did not want to submit before Siji ---Come on Siji, Come on----
★★★
Just when Pago was about losing it, Siji stood up and walked to the front of the hall, submitted his booklet and walked out. Pago stood up just as Siji disappeared through the door. He submitted too and walked out of the class. As he exited the hall, he remembered that he did not write his matriculation number on his answer booklet so he rushed back in
"Hey you! What do you think you are doing" the Prof barked at him as he walked towards the submitted booklets on the table
"I'm sorry sir, I forgot to write my matriculation number on my booklet sir"
The Prof glared at him monstrously
"Did you forget to wake up this morning?"
---what has waking up got to do with this--- Pago thought but he said "No, sir"
"So how come you forgot to write your number? You know the implication? It means you didn't seat for my course"
"Sir I .......I was......" Pago stammered, trying to look for an excuse as Prof. Jasper turned his back on him.
After much pleading, the Prof. pointed at the table and said "Go ahead"
"Thank you sir" Pago said as he walked to the table. He wrote the matriculation number smiling as he noted the similarity between his number and Siji's. His own number ended with 8 while Siji's number ended with 3, those that fall between the two were in other departments in the faculty, hence he came right after Siji in the class list.
★★★
He met Siji outside waiting for him
"I thought I saw you coming out" Siji said as they both walked towards the halls of residence. Pago's car was at the repairer's in town.
"I was, but then I remembered I didn't write my matriculation number on my booklet, so I rushed back in. Professor Jasper gave me hell before allowing me to write it"
"Serves you right, you always forget to write your number, you may pay dearly for it someday"
"You can say that again bro, I almost did today"
"I don't know what it would cost you to always write your number first"
"I do, it's just that I sometimes forget. Whenever I see the questions, all I think about is solving them"
"That's not an excuse, answer booklets are given first"
"You know that's not always true, like today, we were given both the question paper and answer booklet at once"
"You are right there, but I feel you should still learn to write your number first"
"Yes sir" Pago said giving Siji a mock salute and they laughed. They both hated discussing their exams just after writing it so they walked silently side by side for a while, then Pago asked "how is Ese? It's been a while I saw her"
"She is fine, we haven't been seeing much of each other lately, the exams is keeping us both busy but we do speak on phone every now and then"
"And you could afford talking to her long enough on phone, I mean doing your love talk and all"
"She does most of the calling. You know I barely got enough money to buy this phone after I won the last scholarship"
"Yea, you'll rather spend all your money on study materials and send the rest to your Ma'ami than spend it on yourself"
It's because I saw getting a phone as a luxury I can do without, but Ese made me get it. She threatened that she would buy it for me if I didn't buy it for myself and I don't want her buying such a thing for me"
"Good of her, she seems to be really fond of you"
"Yea, and I'm quite fond of her too, we've been together for about a year now and it's still like we just started"
"I never can understand how you can stick to one girl for a year, Kalu too. Don't you guys have hormones? You are yet to know her right? Biblically"
"I don't get you, how do you mean?"
"Don't you know what it means to know a girl biblically?"
Siji smiled "it's strange listening to you talking about the Bible"
"Oh! I do read the Bible" then he corrected himself with a smirk "I used to, in high school, it was a missionary school so every student must read the Bible"
"Okay, so what does knowing a girl biblically mean?"
"Lemme explain like this, at some point in the Bible it was written 'and Abraham knew Sarah and she bore him Isaac' or 'David knew Barthseba and she bore him Solomon' maybe that's not exactly how it was written, but you do catch my drift, don't you?"
Siji could not control the laughter that consumed him, he started hitting Pago playfully and he too joined in the laughter "Bad bad boy. You are using the Bible to drive home your lewd point. We need to use bleach to wash your brain and mouth, they are full of dirt"
"Anyway, now you understand. So have you known Ese biblically?"
"No, I haven't known her biblically"
"Jeez! Don't tell me you've not even kissed or smooched or ....."
"I reserve the right to remain silent" Siji interrupted smiling
"You are a big spoil sport, I was having fun"
"My relationship with Ese shouldn't be your subject of fun" Siji said, then in other to shift the focus from himself, he asked "How is Stella? Hope you two are going on well?"
"We are cool, just cool. Like the others, she understands the rule, even more than Cynthia. Cynthia relocating to Port Harcourt was a blessing, she was becoming too complicated to handle. I was really looking for a way to drop her but her brother did it for me when he asked her to come over. And just about the same period, Stella gained admission"
"I never thought you will end up dating her"
"Me neither, you know, that night at the Lagbaja show, she was your date but you stood her up. She still believes you are gay and with the way you are playing it cool with Ese, I am beginning to believe her"
Siji intentionally ignored the jibe and asked instead "what about that friend of hers? Your date that night"
"Oh! Tina. She failed UME, she has left town sha, I really had some good time with them, I still have Stella though and she has proven to be better than both Tina and Cynthia"
"At least you're sticking to just one now"
"The hell I am, I have one steady for now, but I am not you, neither am I Kalu"
★★★
When they got to Faj, they noticed that the TV room was unusually filled up.
"Is there a soccer match going on?" Siji ask Pago
"Not that I know of, and I have never seen the TV room this filled, not even during the champion league finals or last year's Olympic games"
"Let's have a look"
They entered the TV room through the back door and could not move to the front for everywhere was occupied and most of the students were standing. But for their heights, both of them would not have been able to see the TV from where they stood at the back of the room. On the screen was CNN, which was unusual.
"When did CNN become Supersports? Pago asked no one in particular. Siji was not listening, his eyes were fixed on the screen, trying to read the breaking news at the lower part of the screen, he could barely read it because of the distance, "TERRORISM ON AMERICAN SOIL" then the white woman on the screen was saying. ".......... in Pentagon and one crashed in Pennsylvania, the twin towers of the World Trade Centre were the worst hit and casualty figure is estimated to be in the thousands........." the screen changed and the twin towers were shown as the planes crashed into them, then as the buildings started crumbling down
"Jesus!" Someone shouted in the front of the room then another voice said "these people have no value for human lives, heartless bunch of rogues." Siji tried to shut out the voices around him so he could hear the white woman on the screen "......... the terrorist group Al-Qaeda are suspected to be responsible for the attack............."
Pago was carried away by what was on the screen that he didn't hear his phone ringing
"Pago, your phone is ringing" Siji said, tapping him
It was Sike, his elder sister calling from the United Kingdom. She hardly called, she wasn't the kind to call for chitchat, she was too serious that Pago had nicknamed her Margaret Thatcher. ---why is Sike calling me?---
"I'd have to pick this call outside, the noise is much here and it's an international call" he told Siji as he walked out of the room.
10 minutes later Siji walked out of the room and saw Pago dialing his phone frantically as he walked up and down the corridor, he looked apprehensive, he looked scared, Siji had never seen him like this.
"Is something wrong Pago?" He asked as he walked towards him concerned
"It's my mum, she is in New York, she was at the World Trade Centre this morning, and now she can't be reached. No one in the family has been able to reach her."
About the Author
Soji Adeola Ayanleke was born about 3 decades ago in Kano.He studied Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, he speaks Yoruba and Hausa fluently and he is trying to learn Igbo and Spanish. His hobbies are reading, writing and playing some indoor games.
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