THE FINAL DAYS

THE FINAL DAYS 

On the said Wednesday in question, one of several days preceding the arrival of the Call-up letters from National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) head quarters in Abuja .

The year was spiraling fast into the second quarter - the month of May precisely. Looking back on that day I'd call crazy still sends shivers and a mixture of nasty feelings down my gut and maybe that’s understandable.

It had been that rainy time of the year yet the weather could not be blamed for this intimidating presence of paranoia. I bet It must be the fact that all of this convoluted feeling somehow coincided with the D-day slated for the collection of the final year results.

The final year university result is said to be like the fair magistrate in whose hands rested the fate to decide whether I would go on for the service that year with colleagues and level buddies in other departments.

As if to add to the looming dolefulness of the day, the lead-tainted sky created a natural illusion that refused to budge as the sun tried persistently without success to tear through the formidable fiber of this heavenly blanket. The day was fraught with such ambivalence and it was to be expected.

As a Part 5 biochemistry student from one of the elite states’ owned University, in the ancient town of Ogbomosho, it wasn’t hard to believe this hard fact: the pendulum may or may not swing in your favour. 

It was like the deciding moment when 'lady liberty' may smile on you with clemency or smite you with the anvil of spill-over.

The members of Chrysos-X class as the graduating set was dubbed back then were holding hands, huddling like love birds, as they nestled under one of pine trees in the Faculty.

Flickering light beam from smartphones flashing to capture every passing moment in pixels. All would hardly forget a time when we wore proverbial sables to the lecture halls with declining CGPA and our personal disappointment like a gathering rain clouds.

I bear the name, Jacob and the day of reckoning as I'd loved to remember it remains an indelible scar, hard to be erased from my mental faculties.

For most people like me, Part three biochemistry had been the worst. The darkest of the Dark era. It had been brought perhaps initially by some seemingly random events: like the towering statistics of senior colleagues in the department already fated with carry-overs, that could guarantee anyone affected would remain in the system for the rest of their lives (actually some of them had to withdraw themselves).
Or the fact that nearly all the courses had like magic been transformed into pre-requisites for registration of advanced courses.

The remarkable thing was that even back then it had been rumored that these latest developments had been masterminded by the magnanimous sleigh of hands of the newest recruit to the staff strength. He fondly known by the moniker - the German Machine. 

He had been renowned to be all kinds of strange. His colleagues spoke in hushed voices around him. The students surely were not fond of him.

It is hard to accurately illustrate the palpable feeling of misery, except that it hung over one like an evil premonition waiting to happen in due season. One was only to wait for the prophecies of doom to be fulfilled because it would surely come.

My lore actually commence one sultry afternoon towards the end of Part 4. It enters the scene of this life's theatre like a dictator known to all, and like some edict read by Hitler himself.
 A certain who's who in the department had rang out like a no-nonsense Chaplin, in a low guttural voice to an assembly of Part four students.

“It would impossible for any one of you to have a first class in this department”

This had been the voice of the all-too-familiar devil himself delivered by the greatest spitfire on this green earth and the head of department, Mr. O. Kokumo.

We were there in the present but at that moment the ambience seemed like we were somewhere remotely in our nightmarish past.

His words had a potency like the drug, Ecstasy and it converted the assembly of students into pillars of stones -each of us combating with deep-seated thoughts of misery

Before now, it had been clear to us that Mr. Kokumo was God but how much power he wielded was until now like God speaking in heaven to his people on earth. But this...this was simply pure devilish.

It was a ghastly realization that no matter what one does, the sturdy tradition of the department was rigged.

Before he left us - his subjects, he gave us some tenuous reasons that at best suited a watery patina overlay.

The shock has been shared equally, knowing that for most people I would most likely end up with a second class.

True to the HOD’s word, what followed was a gruesome onslaught on the cumulative grade point average. The impact of this genocidal campaign on students’ continuous assessment would be felt in the May of the next year - the judgement day.

***

On May 20th, the mood was electric just like a cultural carnival. We had not seen ourselves as a class since the final exam of Part 5.

There was carefree chattering, high fiving, hugs and kisses (no one could fail us now, you would think).
It was a very laid-back atmosphere indeed. It was an omen of happy endings to come.

Many had travelled from up north as far as Borno state to down south, Bayelsa state with the customary 'result' anxiety.

***

At two in the afternoon, the initial spirited assembly of students had slowly begun to wane. The mood had begun to vacillate between boring and serenading like a slow Harmattan morning.

As the clock ticked on, our  interminable waiting started precipitating ambivalent emotions from the class.

Some years ago, students had come to the conclusion that if there was delay in the release of a result, this might very well be a solemn message of doom. Like the heralding of an academic tsunami.

***

At last by 4.05 pm, the waiting came to an end. One-by-one, people filed in and out from the office of the exam officer's, Mr. Antwone, in turns.

You see, Mr. Antwone doubles as the department's exam officer and the Part Adviser. He was known to carry an air of piety even though we knew he shelves his spirituality when it comes to being a ‘Loving Uncle’ - the type that extorts students for sex or money. Trust me, this was the only time business and friendship meet.

His intimidating presence whether as lecturer or exams officer, usually had an aura of a doomsday.

And so, the first tough cat - Samuel goes in.

Samuel, a bulky light-skinned guy who would have naturally fit the bill as a bouncer at a night club went in first. Four minutes later he emerged with a stolid gesture.

To this gesture we had formed garrisons of indifference in the face of years of carry-overs. He probably knew he wouldn't be using the damn result anyways.

'Sammy, how the thing?' Dele inquired. The 'thing' is simply a mild way to put it, because everyone must have guessed the outcome of results might not have gone well with Samuel.

'Kai you don destroy Mr. Antwone abi ?' He added in pidgin English, sounding funny in a satire Hausa accent.

There was a smooth congeniality about this guy - Dele.
Dele was the coolest guy in class that was every one’s dear. The one that always seemed to know the right words to say in every situation. He often played a avuncular role at most of our class brouhaha.

'I no know jare, he get as him be' retorted Samuel, stifling any temptation to show his despondence at the result sheet in his hand or even worse, his contempt for the obviously stupid question.

***

Our final year exams was like winning a lottery. We had been favoured by the hand of God or so we thought.
The exam questions in Advanced Enzymology were unprecedentedly quite the cinch. We all felt lucky to be with the 'Chrysos', the golden set indeed.

Drunken by the euphoria for such luck, we soon forgot the earlier foreboding from the head of department.
We hauled caution out the window at a time when there were institutionalized demons to sabotage our every effort. An endemic sickness that has become a part of the appendages of our national body.

Many of us had not anticipated the outcome of the results we were about to collect.
Out of cockiness, some had even contemplated travelling in spite of the delay, even if the result was to given up till 7 pm, despite common knowledge of the dangers of road travel in the country by nightfall.

The next cat was Yellow Martins (for there had been black Martin that was blue-black in colour) as we called him.
He entered with a happy-go-lucky expression on his face, but as he reappeared, it was a facade filled with horror.

 'Osenobua! God' he exclaimed in Edo. His loud frightful shrill caught our attention.

The ambience was now filled with trepidation as soon as the class enveloped him. Then the questions started pouring in torrents.

His cold reality had stepped into view indeed.
All but in these two courses from the underworld came B’s and C’s, he scored a double F in Advanced Protein Metabolism and Chemotherapy.

This was by implication an automatic spill - over since it was the last and second semester of our final year.

You should ask any Nigerian who had seen the four walls of a public higher institution , spill - over is always that nightmare even one's enemy didn’t deserve.

By the end of the result collection, a quarter of the class had successfully scaled the 4-year university escarpment that would qualify them for the national service year.

And like it is said: in all wars, there are casualties. That year a lot of casualties swept through the landscape of our educational ambition.

Some had fallen by the way; some had been severely bruised they had to hang in for another year or two. A few of us marginally left with minor scratches with heaps of ‘'let-my-people-go grade’ grade: the ‘Pass’ grade. A close call to an F-grade.

After a few more people went in and got a feel of the horror from Mr. Antwone's lair, instantly the rest of us knew our fate had been sealed.

I touched the lapel of my shirt, it was strangely soaked in sweat as my body shudder at the thought of a spill-over case.

My inside was on fire and doing all sort of somersault as if I swallowed a dose of mustard gas. It took tremendous effort to sustain myself through the suspense; this waiting game.

The time was precisely 5:05 pm when I got my spot. I walked in with chin held up, squared shoulder... stop lying man!!!…you were shivering like some druggie that missed his fix.
The absolute truth is that I almost stumbled in, perspiring profusely from every possible orifice of my body.

'Good evening Sir' I tremulously said, curtsying simultaneously like the Yoruba natives do.

Mr Antwone's head that was slightly tethered down to an angle slowly lifted his gaze at me.

Oh my Goorrd!!! I almost screamed in my head.

In a split-second vision, the exams officer's eyeballs looked like rock-solid white mug with a weird glimmer, totally lifeless. His face was like a gargoyle’s and as he smiled, two yellow fangs appeared…

'Young man. Ghe me your matric number' he demanded. He called matric as if he was pronouncing 'MATRIG'

'Yes-...Yes sir, 0-5-2-6-0-0' I stammered.

He looked back-and-forth from me to the glowing computer screen in front of him, as he hammered at the keyboard with some type of hesitation like someone just getting used to the computer keyboard.

Few seconds lapse before he briskly read out my result almost like a recorded machine.

Bch 501 - A, Bch 502 - B, Bch 504 - C, Bch 505 - B, Bch 506 - E and Bch 510 - E. Bch 506 and 510 was Advanced protein metabolism and Chemotherapy respectively.

Wow! An air of relief escape from my throat. Mr. Antwone glared at me now with a new poker face like 'What about the stupid result?'

The sudden curtness seemed as if he especially didn't like the fact that his coven of sadists hadn’t done a devastating damage to my result after all.

Even though I had escaped the teeth of the hacking blade of a spill – over, my grade point had slipped by 0.01 shy of the second class grade. This would go on to haunt me at a future academic screening phase for an overseas master’s degree programme.

I left his office depressed even though deep down I was singing Kumbaya.
Better the close call than one more day with this insanity, I mulled. The grades definitely hurt my result but the effect not enough to cause me another year in school.

***
Back to the Chrysos X class
We huddled together like sympathizers at a funeral outside the department, under the same tree we had all gathered earlier like a flight of birds.
There had been a lot of tsunamis. The worst was that more than half the class wouldn’t be going for national service that year. it wasn't a pleasant sight...

We took different direction back to our accommodation.
On the ‘morrow, we would be en route to whatever life we had come from.

To be Continued...