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Civilian Casualty 3: The Thing About School Fees Part 1

THE FATHER THERE IS A GENERATION OF MEN in Nigeria, born two decades before Nigeria’s independence (1960) and during the period of independence, they subscribe to the belief that labor, builds character. It is a principle that they place above all else and they are not wrong, labor does in fact build character – at least some aspects of character. No amount of labor has thought these men to keep it in their pants, not even when it invites more labor and hardship for them.  However, I believe that something may have been lost in the translation or application of this principle by a good number of these men because somewhere along the line, the word labor was subconsciously substituted for masochism in their psyche until suffering came to equal labor in their minds. ( It explains for instance why these men consider eating three meals a day, living with your parents or attending school as the height of luxury). Tade was one of such men. Of the many snacks availa...

Book 1: G.O.O.D (Zero Romance)




Zero Romance, lot’s of drama! Shish!
I changed schools a lot back in those days. First I went to Croft day-care, then Sola White, then Mac Steward then Sol-fa and then back to Mac Steward. Some of the changes were due to age, others, not so much. For example, we changed due to our new living location and then we changed because I wasn’t mixing up (yeah, that was an issue, throw the quiet girl into a bigger school so she can mix up faster!) finally, we changed back to the smaller school, because my brother called his teacher stupid.
 Talk about Stupid


 I think it is quite understandable therefore that during this next period of my life I had Zero prospects guy-wise. I was too busy trying to keep people’s name straight in my mind – a lot of good that, did me. I’m just glad that I don’t have to provide real names, because there are very few names I recall from this period, as a matter of fact, I can recall the names of all the girls who were in my class but for the life of me, I can only seem to recall one guy’s name – he was the head boy, the rest, well, let’s just say they faded from my mind.
If I can’t remember the name of the guys in my class, then it makes logical sense that there was no romance in my life during this period. To all the romantics reading this: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there is no romance to be found in these stories beyond the one at the beginning.
 I learnt a lot of really interesting stuff around this period though and I think it more than compensated for any lack of romance in my life at the time.
You would NOT believe the stuff I learnt! I gained experience in: drawing, landing with my head, visiting others and favouritism but my experiences during this period are not stricto sensu limited to these. Four people taught me this. I also learned how to pull out the carpet under my friend’s feet.
 I learnt how to betray.
Take a trip back in time with me, to when I learnt some of my first ever vices – I learnt many later in life.

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