Chapter 8

I removed the second button from the hole on my blue long-sleeved shirt while waiting for a taxi at the tail end of Sani Abacha Road. Four or five minutes later, a taxi cab stopped with three other passengers and opened its front passenger door for me to get in. My wristwatch showed ten-thirty in the morning as the taxi cab sped to my destination—Agip Junction. The moment I came down from the taxi cab, I walked a few meters to where some bus conductors were shouting ‘Rumuokoro,’ ‘Rumuokoro,’ and stepped into the passenger seat of a blue fifteen-seater bus.

I sat beside a fair lady who suddenly reminded me of my sick mother’s complexion. The bus kept stopping to pick up and drop off passengers until it finally reached my destination—Federal Government College, Rumuokoro, where my mother once taught the English language. 

She always behaved and acted in a different way, which made even her enemies admire her. No one could ev