Must Read: Life Of Uam Boy

Episode 6 years ago

Must Read: Life Of Uam Boy

“come help us catch rat na” someone invited me.

some invitations shouldn’t be honoured. How would it feel when you see a university student chasing rats? Am this kind of guy that likes experiments. When i say experiments, i dont mean science experiments. Science experiments could be boring when chemistry and biology are not involved. By experiments i mean mixing my semovita with cornflakes or opening my dad’s television. Anything that has to do with trying something new, count me in.

Where my stick? I asked the boy.

“See am here” he handed over a large stick to me. Incase you dont know, a tiv man doesn’t play with rats. A tiv man can set fire on his house just to catch rat(my tiv people, shey una know say na joke ba?). Anyways, i heard sadam hussain turned into a rat when the us army wanted to arrest him. I was like wtf!! Him get luck say tiv man no dey there, he wouldn’t have lived to even get hanged, he would have been sentenced to the tiv man’s stomach with immediate alacrity.

“Oya see one rat there, make we pursue am” a guy shouted from nowhere. I had to run when i saw all of them raising their sticks. I began wondering where this guys were when we got disgraced in the olympics. The cunning rat ran into a a thick bush.

“Bring matches” someone shouted.

As if the rats understood what they were saying, it quickly ran out and we resumed chasing. I was almost catching the rat when it did a quick turn and ran ontop my leg. Before i could say kai, they where already Flogging My legs with those mighty sticks. Even after the rat ran, they still kept flogging my leg.

“Naso dis guys wan cripple me?” i thought. After flogging to their satisfaction, they stopped only to discover that the rat wasn’t there.

“Bros no vex o, you know say this rat don suffer us” the silly boy opened his mouth to speak.

I was limping in pain but i wasn’t ready to go, i would revenge the treatment before going. We continued our gulder ultimate search until we saw another rat. It ran into the bush and without wasting time, we lit the match and set the bush on fire. The rat immediately ran out and a guy jumped from nowhere and caught the rat. I saw this as an upportunity so i started flogging the guy mercilessly, nobody joined me so only me continued until someone ran and grabbed me from behind.



The guy on the ground stood up slowly. He had this strong face.


“bros no vex o, you know say this rat don suffer us” i told him with shaky voice. The other guy still held me tight.

The guy i just finished flogging just sniffed. He was fighting so had to hold back tears. I felt fufilled. I was trowing a little party in my heart before a hot slap landed on my face. I didn’t see that coming. My face felt heavy. I couldn’t even touch my cheek because i was still held very tight but i knew i had a cut on my cheek. I immediately knew the guy was a mason, those type that used their bare hands to mix cement.
“bros wetin i do you na” i asked him.

He didn’t answer me. Instead he Ordered dat a cain be brought and dat i should lie down flat. I weighed my options. I couldn’t run because of my leg, i couldn’t take on them because they were many. I just had to obey. I la!d down gently and a cain was brought.

See flogging na. For once, i thought we were in a sharia court. After counting twelve, this guy still continued flogging me.

“who set this fire” we heard from behind us.

They all left me and turned back and a member of the school security was standing there. The fire had escalated and was sure going to cause harvoc. Without thinking twice, they all took to their heels. Since them no the tell blind man say rain dey fall, i also joined them jumping like an antelope because of my leg.

I flagged down a bike but the bikeman refused to stop, thinking it was a mistake. Afterall, how can kelvin climb bike? It was the third one that stopped and that was because he was knew.

I had no money with i just planned to collect money from philip when i got home. I stopped the bike in front of philips lodge and went inside. Lo and behold his door was locked.

For the first time in my life i was sad not to see philip and musa. The popular rapper wiz khalifa once said and i quote “people say you dont know what you have until you lose them but truth is, we actually know what we have, we just didn’t know we would lose them”. I knew philip and musa’s worth but i didn’t know a time was coming that i would need them and i wont see them. The bikeman was still waiting for me, there was no way i could escape. Philip’s lodge consisted of four roles of housing units each having five rooms. The lodge had a fence and two gates. The two gates were in the same side of the fence and that was the side the bikeman was.

I couldn’t jump the fence at the other end because it was too tall. I would have practise the skills we used to learn when we were young but there was no way i could jump the fence. When i was much younger, we had this technique of escaping payment whenever we climbed a bike. I would always drop In another compound then tell the bikeman to wait for me while i get his money. The pattern of building houses in the gheto suited my operation. Everywhere is a shortcut. You might be suprised to see someone burst into your palour and pass you without even greeting you. Just check the other end of your palour, a shortcut had been created. So while the bikeman is waiting for his money, i will gently pass through the other end which happens to be the bathroom and escape.

I dont usually put ‘please dont try this at home’ at the end of such Stories but before you start shouting ‘oboy i go try that style one day’, let me tell you how it actually ended. I got so carried away with the success of my activities that i forgot myself and stopped being careful. I climbed a bike one day and didn’t notice that i had already trick that particular man before. I dropped and as usually, told him to wait for me while i get his money for him. He obliged and i just smiled, “God don give me another maga” i thought inwardly.

I went into the compound and did my usual.
Nobody was in the bathroom so i just opened the door and went in. I removed the zinc from behind and came out. Just as i was about turning back, someone grabbed my trousers. I turned to behold the okada man with his hand already moulded into a blow. I leave the rest for you to imagine.

Two options where ringing in my head. I could either stay behind and wait for him to get tired and leave or i could decide to climb his bike and search for musa. The former could be risky, the bikeman might come inside the compound.

The later was more like it. Musa had more enemies than friends so i could guess his whereabouts.


Philip on the other hand had everybody in the school as his friend so his whereabouts could be a herculean task. Not that i didn’t have #50 to pay the bikeman o, just that i had given philip my whole money for his party.

The bike man was already making use of his horn so i just had to go out and meet him. I climbed the bike and we started our second missionary Journey.