ONE OF THE GREATEST SHOCKS OF MY LIFE

Coincidence? I don't know

But I know that the term my school got a new principal was the same term some of my classmates started having extra money, and started eating more biscuits and drinking more bottles of kunu during breaks, especially my female classmates.

We were in SS2, then, when a certain man (name withheld) was introduced to us as our new principal, and everything about our school changed immediately, all for good.

This new principal showed himself off to everyone as a man with an embodiment of unadulterated reputation, as a man of dignity, well-disciplined, as well as one with goooooooood values. It was indeed so.

This man was an accurate picture, an exceedingly precise picture; I mean, an archetype of a trained educationist who knew his job to the skies. God!!!!!!

And he liked Chinua Achebe. In front of the door of his office was a quote from him, on a sticker. It read "ONE OF THE TRUEST TESTS OF INTEGRITY IS IN ITS BLUNT REFUSAL TO BE COMPROMISED."

What more could one say? This man also had a broad range of knowledge: he knew many, many, many things.

And he was also almost the exact contrast to the emeritus principal we had, which resounded and resounded and resounded to his credit.

For instance, my school at the time was terribly infested with incurable latecomers - I mean terrible students who came to school by 10 AM, sometimes. But immediately this new principal came in, the rate at which students came to school late, started mitigating at a very high speed, until it started becoming easier to bear, until students became totally emancipated from lateness.

What this man did? He entered into our different worlds and value systems as students, and tried to discover why each student came to school late — that was how he solved the issue of lateness in my school.

Just two weeks after he assumed administrative office as principal, an SS3 student was expelled, not suspended; I mean, EXPELLED, from school. What did the SS3 student do?

He told an SS1 student that he liked her and would want her to become his girlfriend. Once the principal discovered, that was all for him, after flogging him thoroughly in the assembly ground, in front of everyone — staff and students.

Guy, fear gripped everyone. We all started behaving well. In fact, even students with the best of behaviours started looking for means to soar beyond how they were. Everyone changed! All for good!

Not just that, we also became better academically because this principal initiated a scheme which hugely rewarded the best students at the end of every term.

Girls whose skirts didn't go beyond the kneels were asked to make new skirts. No more short skirts, they must all go beyond the kneels!

Everyone was happy. The proprietor, I'm sure, was very happy. The community was happy. The school was happy.

His doings, the principal's doings, were so loud, so grandiosely loud, they swept across the whole community like gales, so that even those who had hearing impairments could hear of them with sufficient clarity.

In my school then, in my class especially, when examination was approaching, students didn't drop their books anyhow. In the weeks leading to examination, students secretly picked other students' books and either burnt them secretly or threw them far away: even inside pits, or toilets, or flowing streams; anywhere the owners won't find them again. Lol, wickedness, right?

Well, the reason was so that you didn't read and topple them in class. Everyone wanted first position. The competition, especially in my class, was always very tight. So, we didn't only read to pass, we also looked for means to make sure those who pursued first position with us failed.

I came home after school one afternoon, just two days to exams, and after I had rested and decided to read my books, discovered I had left one of my books, my Government note book in school.

I knew the danger. I was a threat to my classmates. I needed to get that book before someone else found it.

As expected, the school was a cheerless graveyard when I walked in through the bamboo fence — it was very quiet, everyone had gone home.

I was lucky. I found the book in my class, resting on the floor when I stepped in. This stirred me to merriment.

In that happy mood, I decided to take a walk round the school. The principal's window wasn't open, but there was a small, round hole somewhere around it. Small, but big enough to allow someone see the office's content.

There was a sound. It was wafting from that office, I was very sure. It came and went and came and went like NEPA. A very confusing kind of sound: not loud, but limpid, not too shrill, quite piercing, not high-pitched at all, but quite rough-sounding... Terrible kind of sound. Confusing kind of sound.

I decided to go and peep. What did I see? I saw my principal, our principal, the semi-jesus, f u c k i n g one of my classmates. The man was banging this girl mercilessly. Like, they were having se*x, like, chooking.

A kind of an unexplainable lifelessness immediately overtook me.

Tufiakwa! I didn't know what to think.

I hated every good person, or everyone I thought was good, immediately. Tufiakwa!

Tuuufiaaaaaa! Tufiakwa!

But I discovered a certain truth

You see this life...

Activities in the public sphere means wearing a mask. Nobody is exactly as they project themselves to be in the open. Nobody! (My thoughts, though)

Human beings are so intelligent and wonderful, sometimes they even wear masks of authenticity.

One of the greatest shocks of my life...