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 aunty, 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 aunty 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 realised 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- Obedience is better than sacrifice.

I am in confusion and misery right now as I write this story. Will my father ever find a place in his heart to forgive me? I said this because I have offended my father so greatly that it will take a lot of effort to get his forgiveness. I am twenty-five years old. I took a decision some years ago and now I live to regret it. I will live to curse the day I met Kingsley, the man who ruined my life. I come from a very good Christian family, a God-fearing one. I am the only child and daughter of my parents. Though we were not very wealthy, we were comfortable and morally upright. I had brought shame and disgrace to them with my actions that I now regret. If only I could turn back the hands of the clock. I would do things differently. I had just left secondary school at a tender age of seventeen and my parents were proud of me. They wanted me to go to a higher institution of learning and thereafter, live a good life. This was the dream my father had for me since I was a kid and now, he was ready to make it a reality. When I was about entering the university, my father would always advise me to be a good girl. It was around this time I lost my mother. It was so painful but I had to live with the reality of life. My dad saw that he did everything he could to make me realize and actualize my mother’s wish that I should get married in the church. This was what I had in mind until I met Kingsley. I was still in the university, one fateful morning when I met Kingsley. I was waiting for a taxi on this day when a car stopped beside me and I bent to see if the driver of the vehicle was someone I knew. To my surprise, I saw a very handsome young man smiling at me. His smile was so captivating that I fell in love with him immediately as if I was charmed. Then he said ‘’Hello’’ to me and I was lost in the beauty of his deep voice. My knees became weak and I would have fallen if the car was not beside me to lean on. He told me his name was Kingsley and he was ready to give me a ride to wherever I was going. I didn’t even object. I just got into the car and he started driving. That same day, I ended up in bed with him. I fell head over heels in love with him. For me there was no looking back. I totally forgot all the advice my father gave me and my dreams of becoming a successful woman in life. My father soon noticed that I had changed as I acted absent-mindedly at home. To cut the long story short, I soon found out that I was pregnant and Kingsley was responsible. I was shocked by the way Kingsley behaved when I told him this. He called me ‘’a lying bitch’’ and that I should look for the father of the ‘’bastard’’ I was carrying. He also told me that he was married to a woman who was living in the United States of America with three kids. After that, he slammed the door on me. I could not face my father now and presently, I am squatting with a friend of mine and I am eight month pregnant expecting to put to bed very soon. Anytime I think of the advice my father gave me and all his care and love, I regret my actions which brought shame and disgrace to him. I wish I had listened to him.

Talebearing24- Strike while the Iron is hot

Pa Chima did not stop telling people, who cared to listen to him, about the need to make good use of any favourable occasion without losing valuable time. People living around him wondered why he remained in abject poverty without any breakthrough. In most cases, he would go on memory lane to remember his past of wasted opportunities and tell his neighbours, especially the youths, mainly out of self-pity, to make good use of favourable occasions as soon as they come Pa Chima, as he was fondly referred to, was a man of seventy-two years of age. He was lonely as nobody knew his wife and children. He was born in the palace of a king who was his father. Though he was brought up in the palace of a king, his old age was spent in penury and abject poverty. Though Pa Chima could be said to have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his parents were not the doting type, they were strict and ready to send him to school. He attended primary and secondary schools in the country and he was later sent abroad, on his insistence, to study. When he got there, he felt that he had escaped from the strict control of his parents and he could do anything he wanted. He started to live a wayward life involving himself in gambling, immorality and other social vices. Most times, he would be arrested by the London police for night crawling but he would be let off the hook because his father was known to be influential. Meanwhile, he had dropped out of school and concealed this fact from his parents. It got to a time, his father contemplated bringing him back home but his mother prevailed on him not to do so. After living in London for ten years, Pa Chima was deported home after he had been arrested for raping, charged to court and found guilty of the offence. He was deported without achieving anything and he could not account for his stay abroad. When he arrived the country, his parents pardoned him and encouraged him to settle down by giving him money to start a business of his own. He told them that he would go into the business of selling American photocopying machines and his parents gave him two million naira to start the business. However, Pa Chima didn’t learn from his past mistakes as he continued his wayward and wanton ways of life. He wasted the money and after some months, he could not account for the money. Meanwhile, his brothers and sisters were doing well and his parents thought that they should not give up on him so that he would not become a liability on his brothers and sisters. They got him a wife and so after he had his own family, they thought that being a family man would help him out of his wanton living. They set him up in a business again with a large sum of money which he wasted. It was at this point in his life that his father died and soon after he lost his mother in a fatal accident. His brothers and sisters neglected him and when things were rough with him; his wife abandoned him and took away his children. He had since then become a lonely man, a failure who found solace only in telling people who cared to listen to the story of his life and urged them not to live a life of wasted opportunities as he had lived but strike while the iron is hot.

Talebearing24- Make Hay while the Sun shines

Amos Inyang and Tunde Lukmon were intimate friends while they were classmates in secondary school. Their friendship started on their very first day at school. Amos’s parents had brought Tunde in their car. From there, they started their friendship and this blossomed soon after. They were very intimate when they were in the junior secondary school. They did things together in the hostel and shared the same desk and chair in the school. Things, however, started changing after their junior secondary school Certificate Examination. They were both promoted to the Senior Secondary School Class one. After their promotion, Tunde began to exhibit a change in the character and behaviour. His disposition to his studies changed and he started keeping bad companies. He played truant and ran away from classes. Tunde’s bad conduct made Amos distance himself from him. He decided to be up and doing in his studies while Tunde misbehaved most of the time and got into trouble with the school authority. Amos continued to be well-behaved, industrious and enterprising. He was hardworking, studious and he believed in making hay while the sun shines. At the end of the year, he was promoted to SS 2 while Tunde was promoted on trial because of his poor performance. When they were promoted, Amos called Tunde and admonished him on his bad behaviour and advised him to make hay while the sun shines and stop wasting his time. Amos’s admonition did not have any effect on Tunde as he proved stubborn and recalcitrant. He became unruly than ever before. One day, Tunde and his gang broke into the school’s poultry at night to steal eggs and fowls and they were caught. The second day, they were called out on the assembly ground and their offence was announced to the whole school. They were flogged openly and suspended for two terms.When Tunde was suspended, he refused to let his parents knew about his misdemeanour. He went to hide in one of his friend’s house and while on suspension, he always sneaked to the school to cause one trouble or the other. His unrepentant attitude made the principal to expel him from school. Amos continued to be diligent and hardworking in his studies. He came out of the school in flying colours and soon after he got admission into the university to study medicine. After seven years in the university, he graduated and became a medical doctor. One day as he was going round the emergency ward of the hospital where he was working, he stumbled on Tunde, his former classmate and friend. Tunde was abandoned on a stretcher half-dead; he was bleeding profusely. Some hours before this time, he had been wounded in a fight which ensued among members of the transport union in one of the motor parks. He was wounded with an axe. Amos took pity on him and took special interest in his case. When Tunde was recuperating on his hospital bed, Amos got to know about his life after leaving secondary school. Indeed, he had wasted his time and he was a tout at Ikeja motor-park where he was wounded while participating in a fight with touts from a rival motor park. In fact, he had no money to pay his hospital bill and Amos had to pay for him. When Amos revealed to him that he had paid his hospital bill, he burst into tears, weeping profusely. Then Dr Amos had to pat him at the back to pacify and he reminded him of his admonition to him some few years back. He said, ‘’you wouldn’t have been in this mess if you had made hay while the sun was shining’’.

Talebearing24- A patient dog eats the fattest bone.

Once upon a time, there lived two sisters who were twins. They were living with their parents who were poor. Their parents struggled everyday to make both ends meet. Their father was full of wisdom and he always created time to counsel his daughters about the need to be patient in whatever they were doing. He talked to them about so many other virtues, like tolerance, endurance, good behaviour and he always ended his talks with a saying that "whoever had patience had everything". When these twins were eighteen years old, their father died. They felt greatly the impact of their father's demise because they lost a good companion who also counselled them and a breadwinner. Soon after the death of their father, their mother found things difficult. As a result of this, she took the twins to her distant relation who was living a few kilometers away.Their mother's relation accepted them but he was a cruel man who maltreated the girls so much. They were to do all the house chores at home and followed the man to the farm. While they worked so hard at home, the man's only daughter would sleep endlessly. She was very lazy and spoilt. One day, Rachael, the man's daughter went to the man's room and stole four thousand naira. The man was so furious and called the twins to his parlour. He concluded that it was the twins who must have stolen the money. They were beaten and punished heavily for the money they didn't take. The hard life and suffering continued for a long time. One day, Kehinde called her twin sister, Taiwo and told her that she wanted to run away to their mother. Taiwo reminded her that she should be patient as their late father used to tell them when he was alive. Kehinde refused to listen to her sister's advice, and soon after, she ran back to their mother. When she got home, she couldn't continue her education because there was no money. She got married when she was twenty-one to a poor man who couldn't take good care of her. Soon after their marriage, their mother also died. Taiwo felt the grief of her mother's death and she determined more than ever before to be patient to get what she wanted. She finished her secondary school and gained admission into a University to study Accountancy. As time went on, the man she was living with grew to like her and he decided to sponsor her education at the University. Rachael, the biological daughter of the man, had dropped out of secondary school and she had become a wayward and virtue-less girl without a bright future. Taiwo finished her University education and graduated as an Accountant. Three years after her graduation, she got married to a pilot and she lived happily with her husband. After her marriage, she got a job with an international organization which necessitated that she should go and work in the United State of America. Before she traveled to the United State of America, a send-off party was organised for her. The man who sponsored her to school was invited to the party. Rachael and kehinde were also present at the party. When the man rose up to talk about Taiwo, he praised her for her endurance and patience. He ended his speech by saying that "I really agree that a patient dog eats the fattest bone".

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 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’’.