Mama Nkechi

Anytime I think of Papa Nkechi, I always weep on the inside. That man is passing through hell. He has been to several churches but all seemed not to have offered any significant help. They all required Mama Nkechi to be present before any solution could be offered. But she won’t just go!


I had come for night reading when I suddenly remembered Papa Nkechi. This was the fourth time today I remembered that poor soul. We were three persons on the seat I sat on and a beautiful lady sat beside me. Since she arrived some minutes ago, I had lost all the concentration there is to reading. I then channeled all my mental energy in trying to start up a discussion with her. It was already 8:30 PM. I was at Lecture theatre 2 in the faculty of Law.

The class I was in had several dusty and sluggish ceiling fans which made terrible sounds whenever power was restored. They sounded like the snore of Mama Nkechi back home in Delta state. She snores like a pregnant elephant in labor. A wall clock which had lost its function was hung above the white marker board. Around the door post inside the class was a waste bin with empty sachets of water placed carelessly around it.

Night reading in UNIBEN was always engaging. Apart from the clowns who come frequently to relate funny experiences, one also stand a chance of meeting the love of their life in night classes. Before now, Benedicta was getting close to becoming my girlfriend but she suddenly left me for another man. She is currently married to one potbellied lecturer in Biochemistry. Due to my singleness, my huge-headed friend David, has said that my destiny was to become a Reverend Father. But not me. God forbid!

I peeped at this beautiful damsel again. Her attached hair almost got to her waist at the point where her trousers seemed unironed. The color of her hair was lightly brown like someone who consistently used locally made soda to bathe. Her trousers were saggy, the tighter it became as the trousers traveled towards her foot. Her facial expression and the color of her eyes showed that she was still in her teens, she looked innocent and precise. The first two buttons of her shirt were opened as if she was trying to expose something on her chest. A light incision was made on her left cheek, like an exclamation turned upside down. The mark made her beautiful but not as beautiful as Benedicta.

I summoned courage, whispered some few prayers and tried my lucky star.

“Good evening” I stuttered. I could barely hear myself. My heartbeat now sounded as if I uploaded a yam pounder in my chest. The sound coming from my chest was like the ones I heard from Papa Nkechi’s room back home in Delta state. Mama Nkechi would hold her husband with the right hand and use the left hand to hit the wall very hard. This act made Papa Nkechi shiver like a malaria

patient. His wife beats the hell out of him. There was a day Papa Nkechi had to go round the neighborhood to beg the neighbors around to join him beg his wife. Of course, no body followed him except my Papa. Papa almost got his fair share of the beating that day. He walked in majestically with a white and oversized T-shirt to beg the monster lady, but he eventually ran out, screaming like a drenched goat, with a partially torn singlet. Since then, no one goes with Papa Nkechi to beg anymore. He either behaves himself or prepare to carry the cross of his actions or inactions alone. Poor man.

“Good evening”. I repeated, doubling the intensity of my smile. Now she replied. My heart rate reduced. Responding to my greeting was a major breakthrough.

I finally understood that ladies are lovable, but men sometimes, to their own detriment, turn them into monsters.

This piece is a fictionalized account of a true life story. The characters used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarities to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

© Ezekiel Efeobhokhan
600 pharmacy UNIBEN

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