My FUTO Story - #6

Of all my experiences in FUTO, the one that stood out and scarred me for the remainder of my stay in school, occurred in December 2014. I had come back early in the semester after my six months Industrial Training to clean up my room. Six months of freedom to starved rats and roaches was bound to have done some serious damage.

It was on a Sunday evening. And I had a visitor. We entertained ourselves and caught up on the six months of absence. Trading stories and of course my fierce argument and defense of how splendid my stay in kaduna and Nigerian Bottling company was. We stayed up late and he soon left to sleepover at in a friend’s room upstairs. I live in a self-contained apartment on the ground floor of a three storied building popularly known as “Koko mansion´.

I locked up after him and fell to my bed for I was tired and soon I was in a dreamless sleep.

“Open this door or else I shoot”

A deep voice said to me. I thought maybe I was dreaming until I heard it for the third time. This time around it was not as a whisper but with intense impatience. My eyes flew open, realizing I was not Samuel and that the shooting was not going to be with a water gun.

I looked at the direction of the voice and staring back at me was the nozzle of a gun. I had forgotten to close my windows and this thief was intent on coming into my room for he had somehow taken the door net in my kitchen down.

Now that I think of it, was he actually expecting me to open the door so he could enter and rob me of my properties?

Dear Mr. Thief, if you are not with jazz then look for a door you can pull down.

In fear I left my bed to hide beside my wardrobe, thinking of plan to hatch when I suddenly remembered that the key to the door way resting peacefully by the window. Easily within his reach.

My solar light was left on so the room was illuminated and I needed to block his vision into the room.

“Please sir, don’t shoot. I am coming to open the door”

I said, to calm his nerves.

I pretended to move towards him. But when I got to the window, I forcefully pulled down the window curtains and then I ran out the front door to alert my caretaker who lived in the room adjacent mine.

After what seemed like a century, I was finally able to convince my caretaker of my identity, that the threat was real and I wasn’t an accomplice. He let me in and scolded me for having run out. Apparently, he had just locked the entrance gate. Few minutes before the robbers announced their presence. If the gate was open I would have ran into the embrace of another thief.

He left me with his wife and took out his Dane gun and soon there was a battle of bullets. Some boys in my lodge came out and after a while the men of the night left us, one of them leaping from a gunshot wound.

I remembered my phone and laptop sleeping peacefully in my abandoned room. Carefully retrieving them, I went back to my caretaker’s room and kept vigil till dawn. Scared that if close my eyes, the voice may return.

After that debacle, I couldn’t sleep in my room alone and soon I was in a bus back home to the waiting arms of my mother. If not for the grace of God, this story would have been told in a different way.

  

FUTO as people say, is frustration under tension Owerri. And indeed I learnt how to survive in unfavorable conditions, learnt how to do away with procrastination.

God, your ability to place your priorities and choice of friends are major determinants to your success in school. Learn to live life, attend parties, hang out with friends, hold strong to your faith but don’t fail to forget the reason why you are in school. I thank God for His graces for without them I would be nobody.

To all reading this,  I wish you all the best in life.

Ifunanya Obiekwe is a professional roach slayer and has begun training for rat slaying. She loves do to tatafo with her roommate and together they have re-named their friends after microorganisms. So if you know her, you can meet her to find out your new baptismal name. Unfortunately, her roommate still remains unknown. She was a FUTO library addict and often slept there taking comfort in the stale books. She sleeps with hers legs crossed up high and takes more selfies than she eats.