LAST LAUGH

Tales from a fellow in distress

My name is Dejuma, a native of Abika village in Cross River State. I have had majority of my life experiences in the city of Calabar, the capital of Cross River State. What you are about to read is not meant to scare you but to warn you about the DANGERS of cultism!

I sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) popularly known as JAMB in the year 2011. After waiting for about a week or two, the results were out, I was successful. I wrote the Aptitude Test for the University of Calabar later that year (2011) and was granted admission into the Faculty of Law for a five (5) year program. God knows my joy was boundless that faithful day I checked my admission status and discovered I was admitted. Every student in the Nigerian tertiary education system knows it’s not easy to gain admission into the university. Some people have got to wait 3, 4, 5 years or more just to gain admission into the university. Here I was; finally living my family house to be a man of my own. The feeling brought both fear and happiness to me. Fear because I had never lived on my own before, and happiness because I was going to have a life free of Daddy and Mummy’s curfew. As the days drew nearer, I became more anxious. The “university feeling” was taking over me. “I’m finally getting in!” was the feeling that kept ringing in my mind. Dear readers, little did I know that my life was never going to remain the same again. The following events are recorded exactly as they occurred. It had to take a lot of convincing for this story to get through.

EPISODE 1: FRESHERS TEAM

Every newbie in the university is known as a fresher. I checked into my faculty on a sunny Monday afternoon to get information on the necessary requirements for new students. That was when I met Uche. He was also a fresher but was more accustomed to the system of the university and faculty, having passed through the diploma programme. “Good day bro, please where can I find the administrative office?” I asked. “Just move to the end of the passage then turn left”, he replied absent mindedly. I never really cared about the manner of approach, I just wanted to get my registration over with and head for classes. It took me about a week or two to finish my screening with the faculty and start lectures. I came to realize that learning in the university was very different from the secondary school. Here, lecturers never cared whether you were listening to them or not; they just wanted to deliver their piece and then they are off when their time expires. Adapting to the new system wasn’t easy at all for me. I struggled for the first few weeks in class and I belief it was very obvious on me, being one of the youngest students in my class. Making friends wasn’t a problem for me; I was a very sociable person and this brought me good fortune and regrettably, bad fortune. It was just a matter of time and I was one of the popular figures in class. Young, handsome, and above all, intelligent. Every guy and every lady wanted to be close to me (well, not every guy).

I was entering the lecture venue for one of my courses one day when I accidentally bumped into a guy, throwing all the books he held, on the floor. “Dude are you blind! What’s wrong with you?”, it was Uche. He never gave me the chance to apologise before attacking. It seemed as though he was looking for an opportunity to eat me up. “I’m sorry bro, never saw you coming”, I said. “You had better watch your movement in this area else you’ll get what you are looking for!” Uche came back. Hearing this words I began to reason within myself what I had actually done to deserve all those words from Uche. Lord knows I was heavily distracted from lectures that day. My thoughts had taken a great hold of me.

EPISODES TWO AND THREE COMING THROUGH SOON...

Please  don't just read, drop your comments as well, thanks.