Chapter 4

                      A Case of Visa Denied

IN his room at Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, Lagos, Bepo was about to say his night prayer when his phone rang. He was momentarily undecided whether to answer or proceed with the supplication. He looked at the screen to see who was calling.

“Haba!” he exclaimed. “Why will this woman be calling so late?” It was Mrs Ignatius, the parent of a student. She was one of those who, Bepo believed, was abusing the friendliness he permitted. Many kept the relationship as official as possible. They limited discussions to fees, books, discipline, punctuality, etc. But in Mrs Ignatius’ case, she overstretched her cordiality, discussing even her marital affairs. Bepo racked his brain, trying to recall how it all started. He wondered how he could have allowed such personal dealings with any parent. How could she call him in the dead of night?

“He has come again o!” Mrs Ignatius cried.

“Who, Madam?” Bepo asked, his anger bottled up. Before she could respond, he added, “Madam, check your watch. It’s 11:55 p.m.! Is it not too late for this?”

“I’m sorry, Principal. But can you believe that Ibe is not yet home?”

Bepo launched a silence that he knew would not be palatable to her. “For God’s sake, is it a crime to be a principal?” he asked as he momentarily pushed the phone away from his mouth, then shut his robust eyes as if the answer to the question lay in the dark.

Banking on his six-foot height and prominent eyeballs, he always jovially told students that he was created to be a principal. According to him, once he was present in any class or hall, no act of cheating could go uncaught. “If you beat my height, you can’t beat my eyes,” he would declare whenever he was supervising any examination.

The man seemed to have every trait maximally – if not in excess. His complexion, for instance, was as fair as that of the yellow ant that the Yoruba called salamo, while his voice hardly needed a loudspeaker, no matter the size of the crowd he was addressing. Bepo yet had another tale that the students often branded tori: “When I was growing up in the village and my family was working on my father’s farm, salamo used to bite my siblings especially when we were harvesting kola and had to climb the trees. But salamo never bit me because my skin bore the same colour as theirs.”

That was how down-to-earth Bepo could be in the school, though he combined humour, compassion and firmness whenever required. He hated being taken for granted or overstretched, as he believed Mrs Ignatius was now doing. He had told her that she needed a lot of patience to let the wound heal. She had wronged her husband, he believed. She had wronged him terribly, and he had cause to be upset. He thought only very few men would still allow the marriage to continue in whatever form.

A year earlier, the family had planned to relocate to London. Mr Ibe was a manager in an oil firm, earning what a ‘bloody’ teacher like Bepo would call an ‘armed robber’s salary’. Some N6m a month! But he became fed up with the system and bought into the japa philosophy, vowing he was ready to sacrifice all because of his children.

“My children won’t grow up here. They won’t end up here,” Ibe Ignatius had insisted. “I want them to grow up in a sane environment. I don’t want other children being trained outside the country now to return and lord things over my children. Youths are leaders of tomorrow. Not all youths. Many of the ones getting Western exposure will become the leaders. I work in an international organisation. So, I know what I’m saying.”

Apart from the sentiment in favour of the children, the economic advantage relocation promised made it an adventure more and more people were willing to explore. It was all about dollars and pounds! All you needed to do was work in any place – for many people, just any place – earn the hard currencies and be able to send home even $1,000 per month. Then, your life would not remain the same again. With a dollar exchanging for as much as N1,600 in the black market, you automatically save N1,600,000 a month. How many people in the country were able to do that? How many earned such, or half or even a quarter? How many, in a country where lawyers could earn as low as N15,000 monthly, and some teachers were paid the same or lower salaries?

Mrs Ignatius greatly loved the japa idea. She had learnt tailoring and hairdressing, including the traditional Yoruba irun didi, having understood that the crafts fetched a lot of money in the UK. From the information she gathered, one could earn up to £70 or more braiding for a client. Converted to Nigeria’s currency, that was about N160,000. Just for crafting suku or any other Yoruba braid like kojusoko and onile gogoro! While suku teased the sky with its cone-like weaving, the kojusoko braid pointed its tip towards one’s husband. Onile gogoro’s cone was so extroverted that it threatened to kiss the sky. Preparing for a hairdressing career abroad, Mrs Ignatius had learnt the braiding art a year earlier, before leaving her job as a clerical officer. The husband also had wound down his clearing and forwarding side business, preparatory to relocation. But something happened that scattered the plan.

When the visa processing reached an advanced stage, a DNA test on their three children showed that Ibe Ignatius was not the father of one of the kids -Favour, a 15-year-old SS2 girl at Stardom. The family never remained the same again.

“What is the matter now?” Bepo asked the embattled parent, after his long silence, which the woman felt lasted 100 years.

She said, “He still doesn’t believe I did not cheat on him. He is now saying Favour and I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“He says we should go and stay with Favour’s father.”

“Has Favour learnt of the whole situation? Does she know about the paternity crisis?”

“No. I don’t think so. But there is a kind of suspicion on the part of Iyi, her brother. He has been asking some disturbing questions lately. He says there must be a key reason the embassy turned around and denied us the visas. I think he has read up on why families have visa issues.”

“So, is he suspecting a DNA crisis?”

“Honestly, I can’t say.”

There was a stretch of silence. Then, she added: “Ibe left home two hours ago, as we were discussing the matter. Principal, don’t you think he might never come back?”

Bepo did not answer. He was equally set on relocating, believing he would soon have respite from the Ignatius saga.

Experience had taught him several lessons about running an elite school like Stardom. He hoped some of them would be relevant in his next station. He knew culture and policies differed from one country to another, but no experience was a waste. Every parent wanted respect, and many sought to keep their pride. Some were rich, considerate and humble; some were rich, selfish and nasty. While all these traits were reflected in the children’s behaviour, they kept the management on its toes as it pushed to achieve its goals.

Bepo reminisced about some major incidents that had defined his stay at Stardom. He hoped to detail these in a book someday. He prayed his job in the UK would give him enough time to work on his professional autobiography. Among the memorable stories he would love to share was that of Mr Ayesoro, the Social Studies teacher.

At her Lagos Island home, Mrs Mary Ladele relaxed on a sofa, watching a movie. It was a Nollywood treat, the type she liked – a romance. Some five months back, she had been a devotee of Zee World, savouring Indian soaps that dripped with love scenes and intrigue. But recent visits to the cinema, where she saw about five Nollywood productions, rekindled her love for Nigerian films.

It was around 11:00 p.m. Her three children had all gone to bed. She was the only person in the sitting room. Her husband, Dele, was away in Abuja, where he was a senior civil servant. The kids could turn naughty and cook up excuses to hang around the medium-sized plasma TV, but she had mandated them to always go to bed at 10:00 p.m. The youngest, Bibi, was particularly notorious for wanting to flout the order, especially when her father was around. When you thought she had disappeared into the bosom of sleep, you looked toward the sitting room door and saw her mischievous eyes peeping through the blinds. Then a mild battle would start between mother and daughter. It was Dele who, at times, pleaded for Bibi so that she could stay awake till 11:00 p.m. On such nights, the mother would insist that Dele wake Bibi up in the morning, knowing how tough it could be to get her on her feet.

In the movie, a female physician, Dr Ajayi, is about to perform a caesarean section on Bimbo, a bosom friend of hers. The doctor is quite happy to undertake the task, aided by three other colleagues. Two of these are invited from a General Hospital nearby because of their expertise and experience. The third works at Legacy Memorial Hospital, a private establishment.

Generally, in the country, many people have reservations about government hospitals. They dreaded them because of the large crowds they attracted, which usually left doctors overwhelmed. They were also often bogged down by inefficiency and corruption. Nevertheless, government hospitals were still famed for having the best consultants. Therefore, regarding CS matters, many patients preferred to have their surgeries performed in public hospitals. And when they had to do so in private establishments, they opted for doctors from public hospitals on the team.

Back to the film world, it is the cooperative arrangement Dr Ajayi has with Bimbo. For Mrs Ladele, who had had the CS experience, watching the scene in the movie was an engaging deal. It was also good that the filmmakers chose to show the operation live. But what made the scene most captivating for Mrs Ladele is an imminent bubble burst in the plot. Unknown to Dr Ajayi, her husband is responsible for Bimbo’s pregnancy. As the truth was about to hit the doctor, Mrs Ladele, enthralled and caring little about her falling wrapper, inched closer to the TV set to see how the painful truth would unfold. Just then, she heard a scream. It was from Bibi.

She rushed into the room and found the girl trembling, seated on the edge of the bed.

“Mummy!” Bibi cried as she saw her mother. Her brother and sister-Tim and Love-had also been rudely awakened from sleep, looking bewildered.

“Bibi, what’s the matter?” the mother asked, as she held the girl in her arms.

“It’s Mr Wala!”

“Mr What? Who is Mr Wala?”

“Our Social Studies teacher! He appeared to me in my dream! With his tribal marks!”
Tim stepped in to clear the confusion. Bibi meant Mr Ayesoro, popular in the school for the deep tribal marks he flaunted. So prominent were the incisions that students nicknamed him Mr Owala, a derogatory Yoruba appellation for a person with wild facial marks.

Every time Bibi saw Ayesoro in school, she became scared. They had met at the basketball court the previous week, when Blue House – to which she belonged-held its maiden practice ahead of the upcoming inter-house sports competition. Bibi screamed with fright as Ayesoro, one of the Blue House officers, arrived at the venue. Every effort by Mr Ayesoro to allay the girl’s fear was unsuccessful. Eventually, Bibi had to be reassigned to Green House, where Tim belonged.

None of the Ladeles slept again that night. Twice, Bibi’s mum tried to pet the girl to sleep; twice, the girl dreamt, crying out about Mr Wala. Mrs Ladele could hardly wait for daybreak to launch a complaint at Stardom.

Worried that it could lose Bibi and her siblings to another private school, the management transferred Mr Ayesoro to Stardom Hub, the property wing of Stardom Group of Companies.