Talebearing24- He Reaped What He showed

In a remote village of Amackpu, once lived a man whose name was Ofuchi Nwosis. Ofuchi was a palm-wine tapper and he lived with his family and step brother in homesteads built on the land they inherited from their father. The name of Ofuchi’s step brother was Nduibisi. Ndubuisi was a farmer and he had a son called Nnaji named after his own father. Ofuchi had three children who were all male.These two brothers built their huts at the two extremes of the land handed over to them by their father. When their father was about to die, he called Ofuchi and took the right hand of his brother, Ndubuisi, handed it to Ofuchi meaning Ofuchi should assume responsibility over his step brother.
This was the last assignment the old performed on earth. He said: ‘’if your brother has offended you, forgive him. In him, you have a partner and somebody to rely on; a bunch of broom is always very difficult to break. Be in unity and plan no evil against each other’’. Soon after uttering these words, he surrendered to the cold hands of death.The final words of the old man guided Ofuchi and Ndubuisi’s behaviours towards each other for a number of years. They preferred to live closer to each other, building their huts on the same piece of land their father left behind for them.
They both got married. The name of Ofuchi’s wife was Nne while the name of Ndubuisi’s wife was Ifeoma.Nnaji, Ndubuisi’s only child was growing up in the same compound with the three male children of Ofuchi. When he was old enough to start schooling, he was registered in the school that his other brothers were attending. However, Nnaji was very brilliant at school. He was more brilliant than the three children of Ofuchi. He came out top in every examination in the school and so he was loved by his teachers.
He was so brilliant that he was given double promotion and soon after enrolling in school, he was in the same class with the second child of Ofuchi.There was a time that Nnaji’s teachers in school followed him home to encourage his father to endeavour to send him to the only secondary school which was about five kilometres from their village after the completion of his primary education.The recognition of Nnaji’s brilliancy began to create animosity and envy at home. Ofuchi decided to give a gap between his wife and that of his brother.
It was at this period that Ofuchi remembered what he was told concerning his mother’s death. He was told that his step brother’s mother was responsible for the mysterious death of his mother. He therefore decided to take revenge on Ndubuisi by killing his only child, Nnaji.He thought of a plan of poisoning Nnaji since his children and Nnaji ate together as family. He went to the house of the herbalist to collect poison. On the day he had planned to execute his diabolical plan, his wife had prepared the food of the children as usual before going to the market. Unknown to her, Ofuchi went to put poison in the food he thought Nnaji would eat since he was always the first to arrive from school.
On this day, Nnaji was a bit delayed at school and Ofuchi’s first child, Ike was the first to arrive home hungry. He picked the food and hurriedly ate it. Soon after, Ofuchi and his wife arrived and met Ike holding his stomach crying for help. The people in the village heard the noise and rushed into the house, Ofuchi could no longer hide his emotion. He started crying, recounting how he went to procure poison from a herbalist to kill Nnaji, his step brother’s son. The villagers were comforting him, trying to hold him but his brother demanded that he should not be comforted because ‘’he reaped what he showed’’.

Talebearing24- A Local Festival In My Village

The arrival of civilization and western culture has made us to forget our cultural past. Our heritage has been lost and traded off for the western ways. Those cultural heritages which had delighted our fore-fathers are looked down upon by youths who regard these heritages as old-fashioned and anachronistic.I must confess that that I did share this opinion with my peers but I have to give it another thought when I was privileged to accompany my parents to our village to a witness a local festival.
The festival is usually celebrated every first Saturday of September in my village, Obong. Every year, the indigenes travel from far and near to convene at Obudu Market Square, the venue of the annual new yam festival. The origin of the festival goes as far back as when the first group of settlers fled to the plateau for safety and decided to dwell there. I can recollect vividly what my grandfather told me about the first festival when the settlers had their first new yam harvested. Tradition has it that the very first celebration was held at the summit of the Obudu plateau. The joy and happiness shared among the people was enough to pull the heavens down according to my grandfather. Ever since, the celebration has taken the same pattern.
Last year the new yam festival I witnessed began on Thursday. The day after that Thursday, all men in the village woke up early in the morning and left for their farms. They returned in the evening with their children carrying large tubers of yams on their heads. I joined the village children to carry the tubers which we dropped at the market square. In the evening, the men gathered after taking their bath to discuss over a gourd of freshly-tapped palm-wine. Their discussion took them into far night before they went to sleep in their various homes.
Very early the next day, the women started peeling the yams for cooking. They brought all ingredients together for the cooking while the young men prepared themselves to carry masquerades. The girls including myself were not allowed to cook but we helped the women in cooking the food. Saturday finally arrived and the festival was scheduled to begin at noon. As early as 7.00am on that day, the women were up again to add finishing touches to their cooking and finally they pounded the yams.
The real festival began with the arrival of ‘Usu’, the chief who was followed by the masquerades. The young girls including myself dressed beautifully with the ‘jigida’ beads around our waists. We danced to entertain the ‘Usu’ and his chiefs who occasionally waved their locally made fans. Then the food was served and there was more than enough to go round. Everybody ate to his or her satisfaction. Finally, after all the dancing, singing and eating, the festival came to an end in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Talebearing24- As One Makes One's bed so One must lie on it

There lived, a long time ago, two half-brothers named Tolu and Tola. The two were age mates. The two brothers shared the same father, who died when they were both still small, but different mothers. Like all kids, Tolu and Tola were very troublesome and they got into trouble easily, but while Tolu’s mother, Mama Agba, was very strict and meted out appropriate punishments for Tolu’s wrongdoings, Tola got away with most of his pranks because his mother, Mama kekere, was very protective of him.
She wouldn’t punish him or allow him to be punished. Mama Kekere always had an explanation to excuse Tola’s behaviour.Tolu and Tola attended the same school. While Tolu was well-behaved in school, listening attentively to his lessons, doing his class-works and home-works correctly, Tola was always playful in class; he was always among the noisemakers, and he wouldn’t do his home-works. And the mother never cared to monitor Tola’s school activities, unlike Mama Agba, who monitored Tolu’s works.
One day in school, Tola’s teacher caught him cheating in class; he was copying a friend’s assignment. The teacher scored Tola and his friend zero for this and punished the two boys. When Tola got home that day, he lied to his mother that he did his home-work properly but that the teacher scored him zero. The mother was so angry that the next day she followed Tola to the school and spoke angrily to the teacher. She wouldn’t believe the teacher when he told her, her child was caught cheating in the class.
It took the intervention of the headmaster to prevent Mama Kekere from physically assaulting Tola’s teacher. The headmaster, who was so surprised by Mama Kekere’s actions, advised her that such behaviour and action send the wrong signal to the child, as the child might from the notion that he can do anything and get away with it.‘’No, my Tola is different, he is always a good boy,’’ retorted Mama Kekere. ‘’Ok madam,’’ replied the headmaster.
‘’I just thought you should be more cautious the way you handle your kid.’’ Tola’s mother wasn’t happy with this, she felt the headmaster was taking sides with his teacher and she angrily left the office, promising to deal with anybody who dared touch her Tola again. In the secondary school, Tola began to associate with bad boys in school and they were involved in lots of truancy, smoking, drinking, stealing and all social vices. Tola began to miss classes and keep late nights, drinking and smoking with his gang.
Mama Agba, who noticed Tola’s strange behaviour,one day called Tola’s mother and told her about it, but Mama Kekere was not happy with Tolu’s mother, claiming that she was jealous of Tola’s popularity and liveliness. Mama Agba replied by warning Tola’s mother that she would eventually regret her pampering of her son as it was bound to destroy his future and life and eventually that of Mama Kekere.Tola was eventually caught by the police during a burglary operation and was detained in the cell where he escaped. The police immediately arrested his mother and locked her up in a cell until the son was found.
Meanwhile, Tolu sat for the Senior School Certificate examinations and the Unified Matriculation examination and when the results were released, he passed both and was offered admission into a university. Tola’s mother was in the cell when she heard Tolu’s performance and she started to weep because she knew it could have been Tola if only she had been a better mother. It was while crying that she remembered the words of the old woman who once admonished her thus: ‘’My child, what you are doing concerning your child is bad, remember, as one makes one’s bed so one must lie on it.’’

Talebearing24- The Early Bird Catches the Worm.

      There lived in Gwabi two friends whose names were Francis and Chukwuma. They were intimate friends and their friendship started from childhood. These two friends were brought up in the same village where their friendship began. Their friendship continued after leaving the village and decided to settle down in Gwabi, these two friends went into the same type of business of fabricating spare parts for industrial machines.

     Francis and Chukwuma were in this business for a long period of time, struggling very hard to make a living. Though Gwabi was a big city that was full of opportunities, these two friends toiled daily to eke out a living. It got to a time in their lives of struggle when they thought that they were dogged by misfortunes. Hard as they struggled daily to eke out a living, difficult was it for them to make headway.

     ‘’I don’t know why we are unlucky, those who started after us are doing well’’, said Francis. As despondent as Francis was, he continued to struggle hard with his friend, Chukwuma, serving as a source of encouragement for him. ‘’don’t be discouraged because I know that our own time will come’’, Chukwuma always said to his friend and business partner.

     The story, that changed the misfortune of one of these two friends started with Chukwuma’s business trip to Gwandu, a neighbouring city to Gwabi where he and his friend, Francis were living. Chukwuma had travelled there to buy some metal scraps with which they would fabricate some tools in their workshop for a company that had asked them to make the tools for its factory.

     After buying the metal scraps, he ran into Ifeanyi, another friend of theirs. Ifeanyi had become a successful businessman and he had just arrived from an overseas trip. Chukwuma narrated the hardship and difficulty he and his friend, Francis, were passing through in Gwabi. Ifeanyi then promised to introduce them to a man who helped to give him the opportunity to break even in his business of selling vehicles.

     When Chukwuma got back to Gwabi, he told his friend how he met Ifeanyi and the promise that he made. Two weeks after Chukwuma and Francis set out for Gwandu to see Ifeanyi. They went to meet Ifeanyi in his office through the address he gave them. After entertaining them, he took them to chief Iberemadu who after listening to them promised to help at least one of them to travel abroad where he would have the opportunity to stay, depending on the readiness of any of the two friends to make a good use of the opportunity. Chief Iberemadu asked them to come back in one week’s time.

     On the day that they were to come and see Chief Iberemadu, Francis woke up early in the morning to wait for his friend, Chukwuma at their workshop where they had agreed to meet by 5.30am. He waited for Chukwuma to come for thirty minutes before setting out for Gwandu to see Chief Iberemadu. Francis got to Chief’s house at 6.45am and the Chief gave him the document with which he would travel abroad and a cash donation of five million dollars.

     Chukwuma arrived Chief Iberemadu’s house at 8.00am with Ifeanyi.  The Chief welcomed them and said that he had given all what he intended to give to Francis because he made use of the opportunity he offered maximally. There was nothing Ifeanyi could do to make the Chief change his mind to help Chukwuma. He then turned to him and said that, ‘’the early bird had caught the worm’’.  

    

Talebearing24- Where There is a Will, There is a Way

I have not been able to understand the joy that filled my heart and the wonderful things that have been happening in my life. I now recall as I always do, the last words of my father before he gave up the ghost. I can remember vividly that he said ‘’nothing is impossible under the sun and as long as there is a will, there is always a way’’. More so, I tried to recollect again the incidents that followed the death of my father.
I had just finished my senior secondary school promotion examination and I was going home when I noticed that someone was running towards me. She was shouting my name and informing me that something had happened at home. This person, who happened to be my aunt, kept on repeating her words. I was confused as I could not believe that my father was probably dead, though he had been ill for some weeks.
Then my aunt finally broke the news: Olu, father is dead’’. I broke down in tears and that was how my trouble began. My mother died when giving birth to me, her first and only child. Ever since then, it had always been my father and I. Now my father was gone. Who was going to cater for my up-bringing? My father’s only sister was poor and she had little means of catering for her little children and herself.
She also depended on my father. I then realized that I was in the world alone. I applied as a house-boy in one of my neighbour’s house and out of pity, I was hired. My master took the responsibility of sending me to school. I was very pleased and I always tried my best to please him. I also did all the best I could do well in school so as to encourage my master. Since he had no child, he treated me almost like his own.
The only difference was that I called him ‘’master’’ and not ‘’father’’. I counted myself lucky. I then took my final examinations and came out with the best result in my school. Soon after this, my master sent me packing and I felt as if I was born with a curse on my head. He told me that he would not be able to pay for education neither would he be able to accommodate me anymore. And then, it was like all hope was lost and I decided to look for a menial job.
I took up a job as a cleaner in a small company in my village and after working for three months; all I could still afford were three square meals. ‘’Was this how I was going to continue’’? I asked myself. While I was considering my depressing condition, the words of my late father came back to me. This raised my enthusiasm and hope and there and then, I decided I must further my education.
I then began to save some money to buy Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form. After about a year of saving money, I purchased the form and wrote the examination and I came out in such flying colours that my community offered me a scholarship to study Accountancy in the university. With determination, I came out of the university with a first class degree in Accountancy. The following year after graduation, I became a Chartered Accountant.
Now I am a respectable Accountant in the society and I still owe my success to the saying of my late father that ‘’where there is a will, there is a way’’.

Talebearing24: Sow Wind and Reap Whirlwind.

Once upon a time, there lived a man called Chief Olowolayemo. He was a rich man who was highly respected in his town. Chief Olowolayemo had two wives. The name of the first wife was Phebe Ademosun while the second and younger one was Ebun. Chief Olowolatemo married the first wife when he was poor. Phebe was a loving wife, who loved her husband and struggled hard with her husband to acquire money. She had seven children for Chief Olowolayemo, six of whom were girls and the last was a boy. It was because it took her a long time to have a male child that her husband decided to marry Ebun, his second wife.
Ebun was the daughter of the great herbalist in the town of Ilugun. Ebun’s father was famous for bad medicines and charms. When she became Chief Olowolayemo’s wife, Ebun was about eighteen years old while the first wife was twenty-nine. Phebe, the chief’s first wife accepted Ebun as her wife and always took care of her when she newly came into the family. At the time Chief married Ebun, Phebe had five children. The first wife despite the fact that her husband was fed up with her after having five female children, was a pleasant woman who embraced Ebun and extended hands of fellowship to her. Before too long, Ebun became pregnant and had her first child who happened to be a male child. Chief Olowolayemo was very happy after waiting for so long to have a male child. The first wife in her normal character regarded the arrival of the male child as an open way for her to have her own. Thus, she named the child Adesina. Adesina grew up to love his father’s eldest wife because the woman showed no inhibition in loving him.
To cut the long short, Ebun had three boys for her husband and the eldest wife had six female and one male children. Chief Olowolayemo was trying his best to share his love between the two wives. The first wife in her characteristic manner showed love and affection for Ebun, the junior wife. The children were growing up in the same family. They were attending schools. The children of the first wife were more brilliant in the school than the children of the second wife. The most brilliant of all the children was the last male child of the first wife called Oluomo.
This always annoyed the second wife who became unhappy with her three children. She always scolded them and made remarks that their younger brother was acknowledged to be more brilliant than they.
As a result of this, she decided to complain to her father. She visited her father and when she told him her fears of the effect that Oluomo would be more popular than her three male children, she demanded that her father should give her poison to kill Oluomo. She collected the poison and headed home.
When she got home, she decided to poison Oluomo’s food. The second week after this, it was her turn to prepare food for the whole family. She prepared a good meal and poisoned Oluomo’s food which she kept on a table where he could see it to eat. When the children closed from school, Adesina, Ebun’s first child rushed home ahead of others.
On getting home, he met nobody in the house and he was hungry. He started searching the kitchen for food. The first plate of food he saw on the table was the food his mother had poisoned and meant for Oluomo. He took the food and ate hurriedly. Soon, after eating, he started feeling stomach-ache and before long, he started rolling on the floor, writhing in pains. As this was happening, the other children came into the house. They were crying for help when the two wives and Chief Olowolayemo came in. The wicked woman rushed in crying while others were trying to rush the boy to the hospital. Ebun could no longer contain the situation and she began to cry out: ‘’I have killed my son, I don’t know it will end like this’’. When they heard this, the sympathisers who gattered forced her to explain. After listening to her dastardly story, her husband sent her packing. She begged for pity but her husband said: ‘’get away wicked wife, you reap what you sow’’.

Talebearing24: Had I Known that he was that kind of a person, I wouldn't have gone out with him.

I met Peter in a birthday party of one of my family friends, the Nwaifors. Tinyan, who was my intimate friend, was celebrating her twentieth birthday and I had gone there since in the morning on that day to rejoice with her.
I noticed Peter Nwadolor when he arrived in company of his friends, John and Paul. I was charmed by the rousing welcome accorded him and his friends by my friend and other members of the family. Tinyan introduced him to me as her cousin and we shook hands.
Peter struck me as a man with great comeliness. He was finely cut with pleasant eyebrows and well-arranged set of teeth. His handsomeness came to the fore when he smiled. Soon after the introduction, he gave Tinyan a fat envelope which contained money and asked my friend’s junior sisters to go and bring the gifts he brought from his car downstairs.
‘’He must be a rich man’’, I said to my friend ‘’Well, he is comfortable’’. Tinyan replied. ‘’He is a young promising business man’’ she added. I kept quiet and I struggled hard to concentrate on what I was doing. There was no doubt that I had already fallen in love with Peter. But soon after Peter was introduced to me, he called my friend and told her that he was going somewhere and that he would come back in thirty minutes’ time.
Around 7.00pm in the evening, the party started and people began dancing. By this time, Peter had not come back and I decided that I would not dance with anybody until he came. I was moody and at certain times, I went into my friend’s room to sleep on her bed.
When it was 11.30pm, Peter arrived with his friends, dressed in a big flying ‘’agbada’’. He now looked like a rich businessman than a mere struggling boy that I had seen in the afternoon. He smiled broadly at me when it was my turn to shake his hands and I reciprocated willingly with a broad smile. I was very happy when Peter requested me to dance with him. We had a pleasant time together that night and we later became lovers.
I was in love with him and though he lavished a lot of gifts and affections on me, he refused to take me to his home. I asked Tinyan several times whether her cousin was married and she told me, each time I asked that she was sure that Peter was not married. I pestered Peter several times to take me to his house but he only promised he would do that when it was time. Since I didn’t want this to break our relationship, I stopped pestering him.
My joy knew no bounds one day when Peter told me that the next week end he would come to pick me to his house. The Saturday he promised I woke up early to get ready for his arrival. He came and we soon arrived at his duplex. He took me to his bedroom and I was undressing myself when three giant men rushed in and seized me. They tied me with a rope. While this was happening, I didn’t see Peter. He came in later with an old man who looked fearful with charms all over his body. He made some incantations after which he went out of the room with Peter. After some time, the three men who tied me and shaved my hair came in and started loosening the rope.
They set me free and led me through the back door with a threat that I would lose my life if I discussed my ordeal with anybody. I came to know that Peter was a kidnapper who got his wealth from fetish means. ‘’Had I known that he was that kind of a person, I wouldn’t have gone out with him’’.

Talebearing24: Honesty is the best policy

Mr. David Greg is a man who is highly esteemed and respected by his friends and colleagues. His well-known alias is ‘’Honesty’’ because his reaction to every fraudulent incident in the bank where he is working is ‘’that it pays to be honest’’. Honesty has become his second name and much of a creed than a mere aphorism of him.
He accepts this as a way of life because of the stern and honest parents he had. According to him, his parents instructed him to be honest always in all his dealings and to accept honesty as his guiding principle. As he was growing up, his father usually told him to be honest and shame the devil. His determination to be honest always eventually has made him what he is today, a respected bank executive.
David had a little education which did not take him beyond secondary school. He couldn’t go beyond secondary school because his father died while he was in school. Despite his poor background, he decided to be honest and truthful. He was however lucky to get employed in a commercial bank as a messenger. In the bank where he was working, he was well-known as a man who always stood by the truth and whose avowed policy is honesty. ‘’we would not be having cases of fraudulent practices in our banks, if we can all be honest’’, was always his spontaneous reaction whenever there are incidents of fraud in the bank. He had contributed to foiling fraud attempts planned by some of his colleagues either by refusing to conspire with them to steal bank money or by alerting his bosses whenever he was aware of any attempt to defraud the bank. This has earned him a second name and he was popular with it.
His honesty paid off one day. One Thursday afternoon, a gang of armed robbers stormed the bank and ordered everybody to lie down and face the ground. The manager of the bank was forced to surrender the key of the vault where the bank’s money was kept. A lot of money was carted away as the robbers collected all the money from the cashiers and the bank’s vault.
As the robbers were hurrying away, they forgot to carry along with them three boxes containing millions of naira which they had packed out of the bank and kept at the back of the bank. Two days after the robbery, David saw the three boxes left at the back of the bank and took them while he was burning some rough papers he was asked to burn by his boss. He called the manager and other top members of the bank and took them to where the boxes were dumped.
The bank management rewarded David with a promotion to the post of a supervisor and a cash award of one hundred thousand naira. His promotion had since then been rapid and in the last Annual General meeting of the bank, he was honoured with promotion to the post of a manager. When he was invited to mount the rostrum, the Master of ceremony said to him: ‘’he is singled out for this honour and award because he has demonstrated that he deserves the alias ’’Honesty’’. In practical terms, honesty is the best policy.