The epidemic breakout-episode4

A day to the election, Prof. Belejayan, a hot candidate for the post if VC, increased the salaries of his domestic staff by two percent and ordered them to have a wash.
Then in the dead of the night, his personal babalawo went round the families to extract the requisite oaths of allegiance, whispering menacingly: "No swear, no increase".

Approximately nine hours afterwards the servants were carted in a truck borrowed from the Agric farm(on accord with the Agric Prof) to the hall where the election was to take place.

As soon as they were seated, Prof Belejayan himself got up denounce his rivals. Some of them he charged, had brought along their servants and concubines to the meeting to vote for them, in an election meant strictly for the teaching staff. He wondered whether they were not ashamed of themselves?

"I protest!" Screamed one candidate, Prof Gedu'nyaju or "Gedu" as he was popularly known.

It was the fifth or the sixth time he would be running for the post of VC. On previous occasions, before the emergency, he had lost because, according to the lecturers, he was "too thin" for the post. They wanted a man with a robust figure,"and not a broomstick".

And six times consecutively the Prof had gone away disappointed but not discouraged, and undertaken a serious diet of vitamin pills without avail. No vitamins in this world could repair any longer the havoc done to his physique by years of studios isolation, hard acada and frugal meals.

This time however, the prof had come armed with tactics counselled by his friend, the head of Political Science Facility. On the latter's advice, he wore padded breatcoats over his gaunt ribs, a long sleeved shirt and baggy trousers to hide his mouth shrivelled limbs, and a fat cigar wedge in a corner of his mouth.

Moreover, by carefully worded insinuations, his student in the faculty had gradually been made to understand that the absence from the elections that day would more or less be tantamount to a voluntary refusal, on the absentees' part, to pass the year's exam. The wiser students were therefore to be seen gathered in conspicuous places in the hall.

"I protest!" Prof Gedu repeated in his thin voice.

"That charge by my honored colleague, Prof. Balejayan, is false, ridiculous, preposterous and..."
He did not finish the sentence. Rousing cheers from the students lashed the brittle air, and whipped up a storm of excitement. Some of the adroit students grabbed their chairs, hoisted them over their heads like banners, and danced round the room chanting the words: "Ri-di-ku-los! Pi-ri-pos-tros!"

Prof. Kukute,another candidate, moved nearer to the door.
But Prof. Gedu was not done with. Waving his arms to acknowledged the cheer, in gestures strongly reminiscent of a scare-crow, he declared: "Yes, ridiculous! Because the proper way for a gentlemen to win votes, is not by dropping hypothetical innuendoes!"

The ovation from the students was even more thunderous. Their chant rose to a screaming rhythmic beat: "Hi-nu-hen-do! Ri-di-cu-los! Hin-nu-hen-dos! Pi-ri-pos-tros!"

Prof. Kukute, a diminutive man, moved nearer still to the door. He was a pacifist by physique.
Still Prof. Gedu was on his feet. Raising his voice to the final pitch of eloquence, in a voice strongly reminiscent of Osayin, he swore: "As for me, me , Prof. Olowatorefunwa Adeniyan Sunday Josiah Gedunyaju, If I have brought my servant here to this meeting-" and here he bent forward to bite into the room iron frame of his table, savouring the taste for a few lingering seconds before straightening up again-"if I have brought my concubines, let Ogun kill me on this spot!"

The audience waited with baited breath, but Ogun did not kill the Prof.
"Yes see," he snarled, triumphant, "he who throws stone into the market will only wound only Hus own children. That is, if God had blessed his evil pernicious life with children."

Image is from google