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.
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