Being A Culprit

Dragging your parents to a fellow student's parents' house to go and apologise for something silly that you did is really humiliating.

A neighbour, who grew up as the only boy out of four children being raised by a single parent, called one of his classmates a bastard several years ago.

It was a normal boy's fight during our time. The insults we would usually throw around were "stupid", "bastard", "Idiot", etc

Nobody really knew anything about the other person, so the insults were not a result of any personal knowledge

We all got back from school

(He was attending Government College, Apata, and I was attending Loyola College, Ibadan)

Suddenly, three cars pulled up in front of our house, and soldiers alighted, followed by the boy he insulted and his parents

As soon as we saw soldiers, we both took to our heels.

I ran into our flat, and he ran into theirs

The boy's mother had him as a single mother before marrying his stepfather.

It just so happened that his stepfather is a Major in the Army

My neighbour's mother was sleeping when these august visitors arrived.

The poor woman almost had a heart attack when she saw the soldiers

What saved the day was the fact that he was also being raised by a single mother.

His mother made him apologise to the young man and his parents

From that day we all removed the word "bastard" from our list of insults.

I think that was how I got to know what it really meant and that it could hurt someone sensitive.

The second time was the day Adedibu died in Ibadan.

This time I was the culprit.

A roommate of mine in the university went to report me to the SDC that I collected some money from him and had not repaid as promised

We were at the same level in the university but he was studying Agricultural science and still had a year to go while I was graduating

The next thing I remember was getting a letter of invitation from the SDC

I told my mother the truth about the whole affair and begged her to go with me to the roommate's house in Akobo to appeal to him to withdraw the case

Unfortunately, Adedibu died, and we couldn't get transportation to Akobo.

We walked for hours

A bad child will bring dishonour to his or her parents, as the Bible predicted

We eventually got to my roommate's house.

We met his mother

I begged him and wrote an undertaking as to when I would return the money

We got to the SDC, and he nailed me without any mercy.

I paid off the money as promised but it was a lesson that stayed with me for life

-GSW-