Things out of UI - # TOOUI: The Trip to Ijebu Ode or Ije bu Ode (Ije is a Moron)

 In January, 1998, I repeated the UME in order to gain admission into higher education. I had tried my ability in the science quotient and since I lacked the aptitude required to be admitted I tried again. The next time, I tried the arts and eventually gained admission to study Igbo at the University of Ibadan (UI). My first choice was for Civil Law, which was granted me possibly because of my deficiency in arts subjects required by most universities for law. UI would grant me admission into law if all had gone right despite having done science subjects during the Senior School Certificate Examination. The JAMB brochure revealed the information to me. I had thought the education would be in Linguistics but I returned to Ibadan after my first trip to discover that I had to study Igbo. Of course, I was very disappointed because I wouldn't travel all the way from Aba, Abia State to study Igbo. However, I liked the University of Ibadan and I chose to remain and make the most of that opportunity. While I picked up the JAMB examination form and took the examination early in 1998 before Chijioke went on his mission, UI admissions were delayed until 1999. So, it was likely he started his mission to Lagos before I gained admission into UI even for delayed 1998 session.

100 Level was very strange and hectic. Accommodation wasn't any student's right. In fact, I had to put up with people for about one month after registration before I secured accommodation in 40-man room in Queen Idia Hall. So? What's there to love about Africa? The years of development don't increase the knowledge or wisdom. While I was trying to secure higher education, an older brother Chijioke Richard was getting ready to go on his the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was posted to serve in what that LDS Church called Lagos Mission. The church grouped places that missionaries worked as missions. While I was at Ibadan, a JAMBITE, he was serving at Ijebu Ode. On one occasion, I got a message, I believe from my mother that he needed me to take a message for him home.

I travelled from Ibadan to Abeokuta and from there I proceeded to Ijebu Ode in neighbouring Ogun State to retrieve the message. I was oblivious of any trouble and sincerely, I hadn't this cat and dog relationship with my siblings. I had gone to school, an individual trying to make the most of what life could offer. There wasn't any consensus on what I was going to do with my degree and the number of people who would benefit from it. As a matter of fact, many of my relative laughed at me and the prospect of studying Igbo to a university degree. I was publicly shamed by all and sundry for choosing such as low prized course for a career. I didn't care too much because I was convinced that a university degree was beyond the course of study. I also believed that the University of Ibadan would make all the difference. So, I was very optimistic that UI or Igbo or whatever I was to make the most of my time and experience.

Ijebu Ode, south-west, Nigeria

Eventually, I went to Ijebu Ode and visited with my elder brother (or so I was meant to believe). He was happy to see me and went into his room and retrieved a brown envelope and handed same to me. I didn't inspect the contents and didn't even ask what it was. As far as I was concerned it wasn't meant for me. Chijioke told me to safe keep the envelope and hand same to my mother. I would return from lectures one evening to discover that the pins on the envelope weren't all in place. Somebody had tampered with the bag. I couldn't ask if anybody was being mischievous as I didn't want to call attention to the parcel. At the time, I was squatting a Latter-day Saints, one Ngozi Anyiam, who was a diploma student studying Science Laboratory Technology. I had been reluctant to board Ngozi Anyiam for the obvious reasons of not wanting to have problems with her or other members of that church. But she was an imposition I had to endure for my fellowship. In fact, I had relented and yielded to pressure when some Yoruba women or students in the room and especially in my corner threatened to put her up with them if I asked her to leave. It was only at this time that I regretted attending UI. Ngozi would ask even for personal effect like razor blade. I didn't think it was cool that a lady would be so careless about her health. I wouldn't recall if I confronted Ngozi over the envelope or not. It's been some 20 years now, since 1999 or 2000. I'd vote it as year 2000.

When Chijioke returned from his mission that year, the family mostly my mother, myself and my siblings asked him how he got the money. I would find out that he had got some money and gave that to be taken home for me. Igbo missionaries would do that, but I doubt that any would ask their sibling to do so. Anyway, he said that a member of that church was about to get married and got a contract, which he helped him execute as zone leader of his mission in 2000. He didn't give names but I now think that the member was one Joseph Okoronkwo, who married then Miss Susan Metchie (not sure that's her maiden name, the marriage took place in South Africa). Richard would travel to South Africa early the next year, in 2001. I didn't know the terms and conditions of their contract and what was the purpose....

I didn't spend many hours in Ijebu Ode. In fact, I hardly sat down because I was determined to return to Ibadan in time for my evening lectures. I believe that I had got the information to travel to Ijebu Ode from Mr Michael Ajayi through his office telephone. I'm not very sure, but that's a possibility because cell phones as we now have them weren't very common then. This was before the likes of MTN, Econnet or Celtel (which has changed several names since) gained the telecommunication market from defunct NITEL. I had nothing against my older brother. Even though our relationship wasn't sexual, it was as cordial as was tolerable. It's normal for siblings to disagree with each other, but whenever it came to the hatred between Cain and Abel (as it's the case today) I would definitely count myself out.

I haven't ever been in the bedroom of missionaries, never at Aba, Abia State, until I was about to leave for my own mission to Utah when I had to stay with missionaries at Ibadan before I left for Utah. I thought that girls who did that was wayward and unchaste. That was normal for me not to enter any bedroom in Ijebu Ode. Even in Salt Lake City, I was hardly in the bedrooms of my roommates while I served a mission in the USA. I thought that it gave room for gossip and I wasn't game for that. In going to Ijebu Ode, I thought that I was giving aid to a sibling. I didn't know what gave and I wasn't intimated on any conspiracy with any other entity. The previous year, I had entered for a poetry competition in that church that I belonged and got an honourable mention prize, which was a consolation prize. I got $50 for that. I was asked to come to Lagos by one Solomon Aliche who was the chief accountant at the LDS Church Office on Opebi Road to collect the monetary prize for the contest. 

I arrived the hall to find out that Okoronkwo and his wife were returning from their wedding trip to South Africa. I didn't think anything of that coincidence. Susan had attended Abia State Polytechnic at Aba, Abia State and had dated one Eleazar Ikpegbu (who admitted to the relationship with Susan to me) whom we all thought would marry her but married somebody else after the Okoronkwo marriage to Susan (the devil looks after his own, doesn't he?). Their relationship was common knowledge and it was even said that they kept up even after Susan's marriage to Okoronkwo. It wasn't even surprising that Mr Okoronkwo would consider her for marriage having been introduced to her by their friend one Okechukwu Imo. It was just the Aba clique going to Lagos State that has turned the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into a cult of sorts making it a ready mill for gossip. 

Nobody told me that it was customary for a missionary to be bothered to make financial transactions.  i didn't know why nobody would tell me anything but preferred to gossip and conspire behind my back. I was naive but moronic? Never! I trusted a church and family that has since been acting out of contest. The decision to come to the University of Ibadan was personal. It wasn't a family consensus and never a community project. It was only in needing a close contact that Mr Michael Ajayi was contacted, any other individual would have been that contact. I didn't have sex with any member of his family and that wasn't out of scorn nor malice. If anything, it was in tandem with the tenets of the church we had both attended. In fact, secret combinations, which the keystone of Mormonism called the Book of Mormon condemned, were all the LDS Church has made its pillar in recent years. And that has only solidified my departure from the heresy.

The trip to Ijebu Ode didn't present to me any other theme than running errand for an older sibling who has made sibling enterprises his recent job. He has contact with everybody from my school. He would always try to infuse himself into my affairs. I had no idea the trip gave him access to people at the University of Ibadan, unbeknownst to me. I wouldn't do what he did or does. I wouldn't hide behind a lie and make believe. I live my life knowing that people were what they chose to be. I don't like people thinking for me. In fact, it's the only way to know me as an enemy. The Ajayi family must have felt insulted because he was asked to provide information about the UI school calendar, which was very erratic at that time. There were probably other interests such as the Okoro sister, Chastmier and Ngozi, from Arochukwu, who probably felt insulted by my presence. Apart from putting up with them for a few weeks in Idia Hall until I got my own accommodation, I didn't see any way that I insulted them. It was that experience that I endured Ngozi Anyiam, whose mother was Yoruba and spoke Yoruba. I was the only non Yoruba speaking person at that time, probably in all of the University till I graduated the University of Ibadan. And I haven't learnt the annoying language till date. You can force a horse to the stream, but you can't force it to drink. 

I returned from Ijebu Ode and returned to my studies.Interestingly, I became more interested in writing. So? Whether it was a trip to Ijebu Ode (the town in Ogun State), or Ije bu ode (Ije is a moron/fool/idiot, a mixture of Igbo and Yoruba languages) or Ije bu odee (Ije is a writer in Igbo Language)  I couldn't care more now. I'm living my life the most positive way possible. I didn't go to get juju, or magic for which the city is infamous for. I was there to mind my own business running the little sister errand in all humility. All I got was a bus fare from Ijebu Ode and reimbursement for the fare to the town till date. Whatever has transpired since hasn't been revealed to me. But I have cause to believe that Mormon treachery has played out in my life for my education to be humiliated. I have since resigned to fate and the realization that the first crime on earth did transpire in the family. The money that I took home was used to buy a parcel of land in my elder sibling's name, making it his. This has given him too much airs in the family and recently he's been only taking over my family property with the assistance of his wayward wife who's Mbaise like Susan Metchie Okoronkwo, who didn't get married as a virgin (what was the noise about?). Was the money meant for me? Nobody told me so. Beware of evil men and women including possibly mentally ill course mates. In conclusion, whenever you are contracting any business deals with Chijioke Richard concerning me or my property including my education (national or foreign) behind me note that you like him are only a conspirator, a shameless conniver, and a mentally ill misfit.