Godwin Inyang's Blog, page 5

 4521The crowd movedback and the figureof a woman,tall and of robust stature,was seenleaning on the protectorof a louvredwindow and the proprietorof the cybercafe paraded the thieftowards her.Their greetings were brief.The cafeowner asked the woman:‘Please, ma.Do you know this young man?’She noddedand said: ‘He’s my son.’‘We’re herefor something bad he’d done.

 4511whoinattentive and deep in chats wereand whennegatively they reacted, they weretold by theaudience hot in pursuitwhat was on.They’d pipe down and as it’d suitsome ofthem, they tagged along the last taleto hear. Thepole went on as if by a galeit wasdriven. The dude we rode on his shoulderswould’veopted out as from streets to boulevardswe werehauled along but he

 4501‘Edem,’ at the cyber cafe’s attendant,‘shut the system!Those who think it’s a rantI don’t playwith my business reputationwould knowtoday that any right actionI’d need totake to keep it intact, I would.Planning torubbish our image won’t do goodto anyonewho has such evil in their mind.Who took thephone, I say this for the last time,shouldrespect themselves and

 ‘Sometimes, I think poets are mad,’ Etido said, giggling. ‘And if you don’t have ...’‘I sure must have,’ Eddy said. ‘Education is the pass key to unlock the door to wealth and every truly educated person is a potential rich individual and I’m not exempted. Then to really move into wealth one has to set one’s mind to it ...’‘Do you know the legion of educated persons that wallow in penury

 It wasFriday and the night was dark, windy and cold. Everybody – the villagers and the remaining students – was indoors and hugging theirsleeping spaces. But Eddy and Etido, apprehensive of the separation tomorrowwould bring, sat close on the bench on the veranda chatting their souls out.Etido had washed and packed her things as she and Vincent plannedto leave the village early the

 Chapter TwelveThe newscame into the college that Chop-pay had survived the gruesome attack on him butwould be crippled for life. Then rumours filtered in that members of the cultthat mauled him, on hearing he was alive, were planning a fresh attack onChop-pay in the clinic. The young man was whisked away by concerned relativesto an undisclosed location.TheNCE examinations

Chapter ElevenA DEEPGLOOM HUNG OVER THE ENTIRE NATION. There were religious riots in the north andbloody reprisals followed in both the western and eastern parts of the country.The glow of democracy was gradually being dimmed. And then examinations beganin the nation’s higher institutions of learning and there was a resurgence ofcult activities resulting in attacks, reprisals and vendettas.

 Withhis new friend, the tout, Tom had torn open a side of the leather suitcase andfound the jewels and money. They took out the first five thousand dollars forthe bus terminal tout to go exchange and know what it would amount to in naira.The tout did change the dollars and brought back eighty thousand naira whichTom split equally between them. He took another five thousand dollars and

 Withthat Mma Tom left the akara businessto her eldest daughter, got into the Land Rover which turned around and drovethem to her compound down the road.Asthe police vehicle cruised into her compound, Mma Tom noticed a lanky strangerwaiting there already and as the Land Rover stopped, he walked from behind tomeet them. They all quietly moved onto the veranda of the mud house with a

 MMA TOMSAT BESIDE THE FIRE, the oil in a pan sputtering as she formed balls of milledbeans and carefully dipped them in the oil. With a perforated ladle, she wouldcheck to see if the underside was brown enough, showing half the bean cakepopularly called akara was done and thenshe would turn it over for the other half to be equally brown. When the entireball became sensibly brown, Mma