Must Read: Thorns In My Boot

Episode 6 years ago

Must Read: Thorns In My Boot

The year was 2002! Three years after my traditional and court marriage. A lot had happened in our lives, I will only highlight on the important ones

Amaka put to bed in October 1999 and we named the Baby Funmilayo after mama, her Igbo name is Onyinyechi after Amaka’s late mother, her English name is Mary, after the Mother of Jesus Christ.

Amaka did not return to Abuja after her three months maternal leave, she resumed at her Chambers in February 2000, there were so many rumour about the year 2000 that we had to hold on and see whether the world will end truly on one hand or if all Computers and electronic devices worldwide will become obsolete and useless as it was rumoured with the millennium bug.

The Office is at the top floor of Heritage Super market Building at Upper Chime Avenue New haven Enugu “Amaka Ojo Solicitors” was conspicuously written and hung from the third floor . The Chamber was an instant success as all the Clients she had handled for her father and for Gani Chambers automatically became Amaka Ojo’s Clients.
The Office was originally a four bed room apartment but we partitioned it into different sections for the Company use. Six graduates were employed for marketing and office administration and three young Lawyers also as assistants. She reserved a room from the flat for personal use because of the Baby and for her rest.

She is currently heavy with my second Child.
The scan result showed that it is a male child.

We also relocated in the year 2000 to a rented Bungalow at Nwodo street New Haven, it is fenced and we occupied the whole building. Amaka’s niece moved in with us and we enrolled her at in a private secondary school not too far from the house. I also sold my first Bike and bought a brand new one.

I built a poultry inside the compound because it was very spacious. I started with a thousand Chicks of Broilers and a thousand of layers and after six months, eight hundred layers that survived started producing a minimum of forty crates of fresh eggs daily, nine hundred Broilers grew matured and we sold them off at Christmas before replenishing the Stock. The layers are replenished when they are eighteen months old and by the time they are twenty four months old, they are sold off as old layers while their successors begin to lay eggs.

The business blossomed and I wake up early daily and open the gate to attend to women who had come to carry the eggs booked for the previous day. I did not need to go and canvass for buys, they sought me.

My parents have also moved into their private apartment at Nkwagu near Abakaliki town, Ekundayo is five years old and had two younger brothers. Baba Dayo called me and reported mama to me, he said I should talk her out of her idea of wanting more Children after three, he also said mama had forbade him from using Condoms on her. I called mama and tried to make her see reason but she bluntly refused, she said it is only menopause that would stop her.

She claimed she had suffered a lot in the past and it is now she is leaving her life afresh so no one should stop her, after all they can afford to take care of ten Children now.

I called Baba Dayo and told him that we should pray that menopause takes its toll on her since she was already above forty five years of age but Baba Dayo expressed fears that mama seems to be as fertile as a teenager.

My Friend Ayo the Barber also graduated from I.M.T and went for this national youth service corps at Anambra state, he was eventually posted to Girls secondary school Unubi as a teacher, that is Amaka’s Village, the school provided him with accommodation but he chose to live in Amaka’s fathers empty house. He said he would have married from that town if not for the fact that he was already engaged with a girl they schooled together.

My performance at school was excellent; I was aiming for a first class grade. I was still the course representative till my final year, I was advised to participate in the departmental politics as I was a viable candidate for the position of the departmental president but I declined. My hands were too full already.

An incident occurred in 2001 that made me to stop riding Okada at night. It was a busy Friday night and a young man in blue jeans and black leather jacket had stopped me at Rangers avenue, he said I should take him to a hotel at Obiagwu. We agreed on the fare and he climbed the bike. We had ridden for about twenty minutes when we approached a railway crossing and I had to slow down to cross the rail but to my surprise, the passenger grabbed my shoulders from behind and pushed me off my bike, as I was going down, I stretched my hands backwards and pulled on his jacket so we all went down together with the bike. We started to wrestle on the ground and instead of passersby to come to my aid; they ran away from us while oncoming cars that slowed down to cross the rail line were cheering us on. They did not know the duel was a matter of life and death.

The man was on me with hands on my neck squeezing life out of me. One of his fingers strayed into my mouth and I chewed on it, I heard the bone cracked and the criminal screamed and released his grasp on my neck, I rolled over and ran to the tools box strapped to the side of my Bike, I opened it and pulled out a fourteen inches long screw driver, the thief charged at me and lifted me off the ground with the intention of slamming my head on the tarred road, that was when I buried all the blade of the screw driver into his neck behind the Collar bone, he shouted, Ye! I pulled the blade and dug it into his head twice before I fell on my back, ye! I don die!
He shouted; na wetin you take shook me so? He screamed.

He held onto his neck as blood oozed out from his neck and head. Ye! I don die! I don die! He said as he ran blindly across the road into the bush. I quickly lifted my bike up and raced home to narrate my experience to my wife.
That was the night that I stopped using my Bike for commercial purpose. I focused on my poultry farm.