TRAVERSING THE DOLDRUMS

TRAVERSING

THE DOLDRUMS:

A true life memoir

By

‘Wale Oladokun

 

Chapter One

The rainy season had just begun. That year’s rain, though late, had its rounds sustained. A day could hardly pass without rain. That evening, the heavily soaked cloud was racing vigorously round the firmament to gain total control of the galaxy. The air was moist and chilling. But the past few days had witnessed intense heat despite the high frequency of rainfall. It was as if the rain upset the nook sheltering the heat and as such, let loose an era of scourging heat on all the inhabitants of the globe. Even the common customary antidote of water therapy – a form of frequent bath administered by people against heat – was trailed with disappointments as either the water itself was too warm as a result of the heat-oppressed atmosphere, thereby failing to yield a cooling effect on the body, or its cooling effect was short-lived and simultaneously replaced with beaded strings of sweat discharged in a most discomforting manner. Added to this phenomenon was the terrible season of rampaging mosquitoes which had just been ushered in by the rainfall. The mosquitoes were so crafty that they could penetrate the thickness of the thickest dress worn. So, an exposed body was like a ready venue for the feast of mosquitoes. They would joyfully troop out en-masse, ready for an invasion from head to toe. They would go feasting and singing in harmony while excitedly trumpeting the raised pitch of their provoking sounds from their ever-present musical instruments in a symphonic torment.

Dele, a short broad-shouldered man in his early-thirties sat under the odan tree in front of his father’s house and was just about to remove his shirt when he perceived the warning sound of some mosquitoes hunting near his ears. He swung his hand-fan in the direction of his ears in a swift reaction to the irritating sounds. This made him changed his mind. “I think I prefer being drenched in sweat to the bites of these tiny vampires”, he thought, as he adjusted his shirt and rested his back on the wooden chair braced by the trunk of one of the two odan trees standing right in front of his father’s house. The cloud had by then swallowed the orange-like evening sun – a warning signal of an impending rain. Dele looked up to the sky. He perused the sky in a manner suggestive of a search for something lost. “The mysteries of life are interminable”, he soliloquized. While still having his stare fixed on the water-logged clouds, his mind wandered on how he had come all the way from Lagos seven years ago to settle, first in Erun, for six years before his final sojourn with his aged parents who were retired teachers in the village of Aako – a village, which to him was cut-off completely from the rest of the world. He winced at the trick he employed to lure his pregnant wife – Bisi into accepting the idea of coming with him to Aako from Erun where they had first settled: “Why don’t we spend this Christmas at Aako”, he had diplomatically put a request across to Bisi. It was already seven months after Christmas and almost a year after their wedding, and they were still neither set for retreat nor relocation.

The relationship between Dele and Bisi which eventually metamorphosed into a conjugal solemnization between the two was not without its travails. Their first meeting was in the Pace-Setter Polytechnic, Erun campus. It was Bisi’s first day on campus and was busy with her registration procedures. She was an in-law to the Governing Board Chairman of the Pace-Setter Polytechnic – Dr. Gbade Orimoloye while Dele’s uncle, Mr. Gbemisola Temidire, was the Director of Erun campus of the Pace-Setter Polytechnic. The positions they both occupied had built for them a friendship platform. The two of them thus agreed that Bisi would be staying in the Director’s official quarters as soon as her admission sailed through. Dele too was just some months old as a Part-Time Lecturer in the same Polytechnic. The lodge also happened to be where he was staying pending the time he got his own apartment. As Dele settled on the back seat of the official car attached to the Director’s office, that hot afternoon, the driver called his attention to a lady passing by. “Dele, shebi you don hear say the Chairman daughter go begin dey stay with us for lodge?” He had asked. “No, which chairman?” Dele replied. “Dokita Orimoloye”, he answered. “Enh, enh, ah, no one told me!” See am, see am, na the girl be dat. You don see am? You see dat tree ofa dia, enh enh, she just pass that tree. She dey come, she dey come. Ah! E be like say she dey come here o.” He quickly kept quiet as if he lost his voice. Mr. Ajanaku, the driver was fond of speaking pidgin English to Dele anytime he was with him. He said he loved to learn English but for his busy schedule. He complained of being behind the wheels often. “Oh! I see.” Dele replied. Bisi walked up to the car. She was tall and slim with a sprightly stature. Her complexion was shining dark. She was wearing no make-up but looked naturally pretty. She smiled and her upper front gapped teeth gave way as she greeted everyone in the car. “Where is daddy?” She requested to know the whereabouts of Mr. Temidire, the Director. Dele seized the opportunity to start a conversation with her as he quickly furnished her with the answer. “He’s still in the office but we are actually waiting for him because he’s almost ready to go home. That’s why we are waiting for him in the car. So, what’s your name? Mine is Dele.”

Their relationship had started shortly after that first meeting and they had agreed to get married. But Dele’s uncle stood vehemently against the relationship that existed between Dele and Bisi. All he saw was the common hit-and-run heartbreaking attitude of guys to ladies; most especially because it was happening under the same roof he was supposed to be overseeing. He tried discouraging Dele. But Dele was already neck-deep in the ensuing relationship. He therefore found it hard to disengage. Mr. Temidire seemed to be left with no other choice than to report Dele to his father by travelling all the way to Aako village to inform him of the urgent need to warn his son to desist from any act that would warrant his being arrested by the police. Because the act, according to Mr. Temidire, was such that could be likened to that of a man scratching his nose with the head of a snake by engaging the ‘daughter’ of an influential man in a ‘frivolous’ relationship. It took Dele some time to discover that the relationship that existed between Bisi and Dr. Orimoloye was not that of a daughter but an in-law. It was not until Bisi herself explained the relationship that existed between them that he tried rubbing off the slate of his former impression about her.  He wondered why almost everybody was fond of referring to Bisi as Dr. Orimoloye’s daughter.

Dele was unyielding to all persuasions to desist from the relationship involving him and ‘Dr. Orimoloye’s daughter’ and as a result, he was summoned for interrogation by his parents for the purpose of establishing the fact about his relationship with Bisi. Dele was however able to allay the fears of his parents about the relationship as well as Dr. Orimoloye’s possible misinterpretation or dissatisfaction about the issue.   

Dele hissed at the numbing thought of his jobless predicament. No end seemed in sight to this predicament no matter how hard he had searched. And with no job, relocation was impossible. “Poor lady”, he remarked half aloud with a feeling of frustration and resentment. “May be I shouldn't have accepted that part-time job in the first place … yes, that was the genesis of my predicament … the entrance of distraction!” He continued his soliloquy. Dele’s soliloquy continued unabated and almost degenerated into a monologue while still seated under the odan tree. His past experiences kept tormenting him like the face of a fearful masquerade. It was always present in his sub-consciousness. It stood by him like his own shadow, trailed him like the blood of a wounded snake and went to bed with him, proliferating his dream and making him feel uneasy and restless. 

Dele had served first, as a part-time lecturer at the Erun campus of the state-owned Pace-setter Polytechnic in the Western part of Nigeria for one year and later graduated to a Teaching Assistant on a contractual appointment which was on for five years. Each of these years came with fresh and juicy promises powered by feeble attempts by the management of the Pace-setter Polytechnic at getting the appointments of this set of enslaved teaching staff regularized. The offer of N10, 000 which was later jerked up to N12, 500 per month notwithstanding, Dele and his colleagues continued putting in their best undeterred with the pulsating fire of hope that was kept aglow by their enduring spirits. According to Dele, a child that fails to explore a rodent’s hide-out to the end will go home empty-handed. He also anchored his perseverating pursuits on the scriptural verse: “he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved”. So, the waiting game to Dele was quite rational and justifiable. He was determined to endure to the end and get his appointment regularized. As such, all other job offers he got were turned down. He even helped two of his cousins to secure a teaching appointment under the State Teaching Service Commission with the belief that “a bird at hand is worth more than two in the bush”. Going by his performance at work and the encouraging feedbacks laced with encomiums that complemented his hard work, he was so certain and relaxed that the job was already his. Even more so because he felt that since his own uncle was the Director of the campus and his uncle’s friend was the Chairman, Governing Board of the Polytechnic, he had nothing to fear by his human calculations. “Why then would he go for the TESCOM appointment again?” he had thought. “After all, no glutton can swallow the whole earth”. One of the HOD`s, while commenting on his commitment and hard work ,even assured him that if the school decided to regularize the appointment of just one contract staff, it should be him.

  Mostly, at the end of each academic session, which marked the end of their monthly allowance – as it was being fondly referred to by Teaching Assistants who believed the appointment was an extension of National Youth Service Corps’ assignment– Dele and his colleagues could stay without pay for a period of five to six months – if strike action did not elongate this projection as it often was the case– while waiting for the commencement of a fresh academic session heralding the renewal of their seasonal appointments as well as the continuation of  their monthly paltry pay.

Dele puffed out a hot heavy sigh as the weaver birds resumed their daily evening market on the odan tree. He had tried in vain to discourage the annoying acts of these stubborn birds by throwing stones at them. He even purchased a catapult for that purpose. “Why must these birds decide to choose our own tree out of all the trees surrounding us in this area? There are even better trees in the bush. But these do not catch their interest a bit. I suspect a foul mission in this choice of theirs and I’m not going to allow that to happen. I must force them to relocate!” The ega, as the weaver birds were being fondly called in Dele’s village had already started weaving their nests with the kind of dexterity that would arrest any inquisitive mind. They flew across the road joyfully scouting for strands of weeds tactfully torn to make good weaving materials and within an eye-twitch, they were back on the tree with these materials to create magic shelters that were neatly woven with their beaks. Although, Dele loved to watch them while performing their weaving feat, he detested their noisy nature. He therefore decided to cut every branch bearing their nests so as to scare them from settling permanently on the odan tree which served as a good source of shade to everyone residing around that area. “They must be stopped from constituting nuisance!” Some local trade unions had even adapted the tree to serve in place of rented tents for their weekly meetings. They too had been complaining about the excesses of these flying little creatures whose craps could keep the head stinking warm for as long as one was seating under the tree.

What kept bothering Dele was the mystery surrounding his being unjustly edged out of the crop of Teaching Assistants that made the list of regularization. He had often received the ever reassuring pats of his HOD, he had worked tirelessly, he had stayed back on several occasions to assist in other administrative duties of the department and he was ever punctual and dedicated to his duties because he loved his job and had unflinching penchant for teaching. His scholastic zeal was also very robust as he already had up to four good publications to his credit. And above all, he was among the top ten in the list of candidates for regularization after the interview that eventually turned out to be a mere charade. His name was initially in the list of those found appointable shortly after the interview, only for him to receive a shocking revelation from a friend working in the Registry department of the Polytechnic that another list had been released bearing no name similar to his! “Why”, “how”, “what happened?” were the questions he was still unable to provide answers to. The only explanation he got was that his department was ‘overstaffed’ and therefore staff members like him needed to be ‘pruned’! This shocking news was received in the wake of his wedding preparations which had been scheduled for the following month. Being the first son, his parents had insisted that the wedding must go on, the bad news notwithstanding.

Dele had run from pillar to pole seeking the intervention of the few well-meaning and influential Nigerians he knew. The little money he had saved for his wedding was almost fully expended on fruitless journeys to meet the so-called ‘influential politicians’, ‘political god-fathers’ and political office-holders for redress. That was because the act was said to be purely political and not in any way academic; therefore, a political approach was needed to beget a political solution peculiar to that particular academic community where even admission exercise was highly politicized let alone an issue of appointment that could trigger many corner-cutting practices going by the Nigerian context. That was where “long leg” came in; and before long, Dele was found unfit for the ensuing competition for appointment in the Pace-setter Polytechnic due to his “short legs” and in no time was thrown out of the system – Masters gone, job gone; the six years spent in selfless service notwithstanding! His uncle’s position and connections became completely numb and irrelevant. It all ended like a shadow-chasing game. “What an injustice – an unforgivable act of brazen robbery – an odious act depicting the propensity of cruelty in human heart!” This act to Dele could only come from butchers to helpless animals in their grips … simply too inhuman! Especially to someone that had endured his being used like an unlubricated tool for more than six years only to be thrashed like a pack of rubbish meant to be incinerated when the time of harvest was just around the corner. The loss to Dele was unquantifiable. It was utterly paradoxical to imagine that he had sacrificed so much for that magnitude of unprecedented loss in the end. His mind immediately flickered through the events that led to the termination of his first attempt at Master’s programme in the prestigious University of Lagos.

On that fateful day, he woke up at 4:00 am and had his daily morning devotion and meditations in the shabbily furnished small room that was part of the strings of Boys’ Quarters attached to the main blocks of the University of Lagos Staff Quarters, Ozolua Road. Anyone staying in a BQ at the Unilag Staff Quarters as a student that time was often regarded as either wealthy or highly influential. That was because to rent a BQ for just one session cost over fifty thousand naira as at then. But Dele’s history of residency was quite different. He had been offered this enviable shelter free of charge by a generous benefactor as far back as his undergraduate days.  The genesis of this begotten luxury unfolded in a dramatic way. It was a product of the ordeal he faced while in two hundred level in the same University of Lagos. 

.....Watch out for the complete NOVEL: TRAVERSING THE DOLDRUMS