That evening, four years ago i sat in my office flipping through pages of my brain looking for a
suitable title for a story I have written. Just then; a friend with nothing better to do breezed into the office with a piece of paper in hand. His face was bursting under the pressure of a big laugh waiting to happen.
“My dear boy”, he called out in his characteristic manner, “I told you my daughter will make her eight credits in one sitting. Your problem is you never believe anything I say to you”.
“Did that just happened?” I asked bored to the ear.
“Sure, look at it here, alpha in Mathematics and English language, king and queen of all subjects”, helaughed his big mouth going from ear to ear.
“Good luck to her”, I said with a heavy heart.
“What is eating you up boy or you are as stone broke as ever?” He asked surprised at my cold attitude.
“My brother, how many of these papers were written by your daughter? Remember, you asked me to write some of these papers for her and I refused. You went on to commission some unemployed youth to do the dirty work and now you are celebrating like I do not know what went down …”
“Enemy of progress. Sit there asking me questions. Infact you are a reason Nigeria cannot grow …”
“I only asked the question …”
“And I just answered you. My dear my girl cleared her papers and whatever you think will sit in your skull there and eat out your stony brain; stone broke poor man”, he poured on me.
“You are even celebrating the mathematics you wrote for her …”
“She still passed them and you can cry there …”
“My friend, we are killing education in Nigeria and you know it. Your daughter has just gotten grades can never defend we both know it …” I shouted.
“You can shout yourself to hell for all I care. Is it poor me that will spoil Nigeria wey don rotten before my mother was born?”
“Please leave me alone, just get out”.
“Enemy of progress, do you even have a daughter?” He asked storming out.
Well that girl made it to the University and after so many years of sorting lecturers to survive; she was dropped for poor performances.
There is this young man on my street who never opened a book but has money to pay. He graduated
with second class upper division. He has just lost his second job in one year because he does not
know debit and credit columns even with a 2.1 in Accountancy. That’s the dusk of examination
malpractices and passing by all means. db.
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