I am typing this column in the small hours of the morning of May 6, having just turned 32 years old and feeling no special urge to celebrate it. Unlike my regular columns which focus on economic and geopolitical commentary, this one will be an introspective glance at what life has brought my way and the journey that has brought me from a greedy teenager to the weird situation of becoming an accidental dissident 15 years later. And what a story it has been.
The year is 2007, and 17-year-old David is fighting with his parents for a number of reasons. David is studying Mass Communication at Igbinedion University, Okada, but he does not think that he has any business being there.
In his eyes, the university, the study program, the teaching staff and everything about Okada is substandard and far beneath the standard of education he is used to. His parents however, believe that David is better off there than wasting their hard-earned money on an airy fairy Liberal Arts program at Nottingham Trent University, where his heart initially was.
David’s Jehovah Witness parents also sense that their 17 year-old is not quite as into their religion as they would like, though the extent to which he is disconnected is still rather hidden from them.
As a result, David has become the first (and last) one of their five kids to attend an undergraduate degree program in Nigeria — and boy, he is not happy about it. Enter Lauretta (name has been changed).
Lauretta is a supremely attractive, confident social butterfly in her final year on the same Mass Communications program at Igbinedion University, and as it often works out with these things, she and Level 200 Dave strike up a ‘thing.’
Dave skipped Year 1 using the Cambridge A Level direct entry route, and even though he is 17, he has the total absence of fear that will become something of a recurring theme over the next decade of his life. Our hero has no idea that even being seen with Lauretta in public can be a dangerous thing for him.
It doesn’t matter that Dave and Lauretta never actually, you know, ahem…hem. All that matters is that there is a perception that this Jambite is running show with a final year chick, and boy is that trouble! First Dave starts getting called to the HOD’s office a lot for nothing in particular.
A few greasy questions about the nature of his relationship with Lauretta typically ensue, but teenage Action Man still doesn’t grasp the situation. He even ups the ante by taking Lauretta out to an event that basically the entire glorified secondary school attends.
Now the tongues really start wagging. “I hear say the guy never even nack 18!” “Who e tink say him be?” “Na money him tink say him get?” “See as him just dey flex Lauretta like say notin notin!”
Eventually, the penny begins to drop when he is cornered by a group of 400 level Mass Comm dudes on the way home one day, and he is pointedly warned to stay away from Lauretta. Or else.
The following week, the HOD informs him that there is a problem with his admission data. Something something, Cambridge O’ Level Mathematics, something something, didn’t write SSCE, something something, need to write SSCE, something something, will not graduate. You get the picture.
Now the very unfortunate thing about this situation is that none of these characters understand who or what Dave is. This outwardly normal teenager is someone that has spent his entire existence involved in one measure of rebellion or the other.
He might look like your bog-standard spoiled-kid student on the outside, but what you can’t see is that this here fellow is not normal. He has a mind that is the conceptual offspring of a suicide bomber and a guerilla fighter – you unfortunately cannot bully him.
I say “unfortunately,” because this legendary stubbornness will later bring an unthinkable amount of complication into his life. It might actually be easier for him if he had the normal human ability to be bullied into submission, but hey. He is what he is.
Instead of caving in and staying away from Lauretta to protect himself, Dave does what he does best — he rebels. He stops attending classes, writing exams and interacting with anyone except Lauretta.
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He informs his parents that the N750,000 first year tuition fee they paid is merrily wasting away because he does not take this “university” seriously, but they are welcome to keep wasting their money for another two years.
In the end, he says, all it will take is a bribe, and he will be awarded a degree, having taken no meaningful part in it at all.
Two weeks later, I was at the VFS centre applying for my UK student visa. I suppose you have to blame my parents for giving me the idea that I do not have to be subject to mediocrity and injustice.
Based on this and other experiences, I developed the impression that there are bigger ideals to aspire to in life than bare survival, and that there are places where such ideals are held as the norm.
It is these ideas that have impelled me over the intervening years to continuously reject acquiescence and revolt against injustice. The journalist and human being I have become today is a direct consequence of stories like the one I have just told.
So here’s to 32 years of consistent rebellion. Let’s hope for 32 more.
