One Good Turn [Writer's contest]

I woke up at 4:30am to get ready for my job interview; my sleep wasn’t a peaceful one because I was very nervous. “To get a job in this Lagos no be beans o, but I must become a Lagos big boy one day” I thought to myself.

I had time to ‘boot’ and reflect on my life before getting ready. My name is Oluwafemi Chukwuma, whenever I introduce myself, people always give me a second look; I am yet to find out why.

Growing up in Onitsha made the igbo blood in me stronger, in fact, I am a perfect replica of my father, Chief Obi Chukwuma. His hustle in Lagos before going to set up a cement factory in Onitsha was not in vain, as he left with a beautiful Yoruba woman. My mother’s name is Afoke, but my dad fondly calls her Afo’m. It was tough at that period to get both families to accept each other due to tribal differences which was a big deal then.

My Igbo language is actually ‘on fleek’. I attended Brain-point English and French speaking school Onitsha, do not be deceived by the name of the school, my classmates were fellow igbotic kids who called me ‘Faymi’.

My roommate’s phone rang, drifting me back to reality. His ringtone was Phyno’s alobam. I remember the last time I was home and my mum heard the song playing on Soundcity, she gave a very concerned look as she asked, “Why Is he saying that they are armed robbers!” What she heard was “Men kpasa n’ogbe jukwe ese e ga fu na ha bu armed robber” Loool…my brother and I had a good laugh that day.

After calling thrice, the caller gave up; I wonder which of his numerous girlfriends it was. Lazy-Chuka didn’t even flinch; he snored on like an over-fed pregnant hippopotamus. Chuka and I were course mates at Nnamdi Azikiwe University; the apartment was given to him by the school where he carried out his youth service program.  On completion of the program, he had to vacate the premises or pay up the house rent on his own. As fate would have it, we ran into each other, I was staying with my Aunt Debisi then, but I was literally fed up with eating Amala and ewedu, so we teamed up.

I put on my rechargeable torchlight; It stared back at me, uncharged. The only thing stopping me from pouring hot water on Chuka at that point was just that the girls that usually stop by to drop the lunch I used to ‘perch’ on would no longer find him attractive.

My laptop had issues that caused the light to be very dim. Chuka browsed with it overnight, so he used the torchlight as an extra light source to view the keyboard. The last website he visited was Jovago.com, the best online hotel booking site. Hmmm… which babe was he trying to impress. Thank God for Nokia phones and their very sufficient battery life, I had a functional light source as we had all given up on PHCN in that area.

The interview was to hold at 10a.m, I was an hour and thirty minutes early. Two ‘busy-bodies’ were already seated when I walked in, I fake-smiled at them.  Then a very important man walked in, with the way the secretary and everyone reset themselves, it was very easy to tell that that was the Managing director. He looked at everyone as he passed, but stared longer at me, I had to look at myself from head to toe to ensure that “my suit was alright.”

After about fifteen minutes, the secretary came to inform us that the interview would begin soon, then she asked me to follow her. “wetin femo don do o” I thought to myself.

She knocked on the M.D’s door before walking in; I followed her like an Isrealite being led out of Egypt. He gave her a signal indicating that she could leave, I stood upright and focused, it’s a very big privilege to stand in front of the M.D of Glaxxo Oil Company.

He asked for my name, it took me 5seconds to remember my name, but the devil is a liar. “My name is Oluwafemi Obi” I replied him. Then he told me to tell him about my father...As I spilled all the information, I wondered what my father had to do with my application.

“I knew it! I saw the resemblance” he exclaimed. He asked for my father’s number which I gave to him, praying and hoping that I had not put him in trouble. My dad was fond of keeping his phone anywhere till he was ready to make a call. He dialed the number and surprisingly, my dad picked up almost immediately.

A brief introduction turned into a very long catch-up gist, apparently, their friendship goes way back as I even heard him say “you beeeeed boy, so you finally married Afoke.”  When the call was over, he shook my hand firmly and said “Welcome to the company, Femolala, your father is an old friend who helped me when I was in distress.” Femolala, That was a sign that he was a ‘wassup man’ I smiled.

Just like that I got the job o! When I stepped out of his office, I rubbed the hand I shook him with on my already-balding head thrice in a circular motion, hoping there was no CCTV….there are superstitious beliefs that good luck can be passed on that way.

Na Lie o! The best form of goodluck is having a very close resemblance to your good father who helps everyone he can and leaves a good impression everywhere he goes. At that moment, I resolved to always do good even if there was no immediate reward for it.

Throughout the day, I was jamming P-square’s ‘possibilty song’…’’TELL ME WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE, YOUR MAMA, YOUR PAPA *3X”

NAME: PRISCA ILOZUMBA