“The Principal’s office is key to our success,” Martin said in near whispers. How? We asked as we became more confused. He signaled to me and Arthur to come closer, he then said: “The three of us shall henceforth be responsible for the sweeping of our classroom and the principal’s office after school hours for the next 3 days.” We agreed without knowing why.
For the next three days we volunteered to tidy up our classroom after school and also the principal’s office alongside her secretary’s office too. The girls and the janitor that usually does the work couldn’t believe their luck, they were surprised but happy.
“Do not mix up the refuse from the Secretary’s office with any other,” Martin warned Arthur and I. In fact Martin took the responsibility of disposing the refuse basket from the Secretary’s office. They were afterwards all disposed inside his locker.
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At the end of the third day, I couldn’t believe Martin’s ‘smartness’ when he opened his locker for us to assess the ‘harvests’ from the Secretary’s office. Now, in those days, our question papers were typed by the Secretary with an Olympia typewriter that was stationed in her office. Filled in Martins locker were carbon papers, stencil papers and torn typing sheets.
By the time we were finished with meticulously laying out and piecing together bits and pieces of all the materials we got, we had almost the exam questions of the entire school in our hands.
We could have gotten away with it if we had concentrated on ours alone, but Martin had other ideas. He started selling the questions to anyone who was interested and it wasn’t long before the school authorities got wind of it and brought us in.
It was a military secondary school during the military rule, we paid the price for our offense to the last kobo. Martin was spared, the authorities didn’t believe Martin was capable of the offense; he was probably lured and intimated into the cartel because he was a sickler.
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Those who are posturing today as being in power may not be the ones running Nigeria.
Written by Young Ozogwu.
Follow on Twitter: @youngies