MY STORY PART 14: I HATE WHAT I DON’T LIKE
By Victor Edegbai
Fast forward to many months later. Aba had become calm. The rampaging kidnappers and dare devil armed robbery gang led by a woman had been decimated. Markets were opening freely, some roads had been fixed. It now felt like living in a civilized place small.
It was in this period of relative peace that we had a new operations manager. Reverend was a man of many parts. Like all managers, he had many parts that we did not like. For one he was very good at implementing the school uniform that the regional manager decided to impose. Imagine grown adults reduced to rules of personal aggrandizement. Me I did not like this at all. I wore green cheque and green shorts in primary school, purple and white in secondary school and as law student I wore black and white in university. Now as a grown bank staff they still wanted to subject me to uniform.
Me I did not hide my feelings like many people did and that was the beginning of them calling me a rebel. They even called me cultist sef, because I had to be a cultist to say NO to rules that even the bank did not put in place. I also did not like the the daily school assembly. Every morning, he made us to gather at the Banking hall singing praise and worship, then pray, then now talk small about the day, the same thing we did in primary school and secondary school. One did not have time to get prepared and refreshed to meet customers and serve them. I didn’t like those prayer sessions at all, not because I wasn’t a God fearing christian oh, but because it is not what the bank said we should do, so you cannot just make it compulsory simply because you are a reverend. Imagine person threatening me with query because I did not come down for prayer session.
That incident still looks ludicrous when ever I remember it. I have tried severally to imagine a caption for the query that isn’t funny . Imagine a caption like “RE: REFUSAL TO COME AND PRAY. or YOU DID NOT SAY THE LORD’S PRAYER, COME AND EXPLAIN or ARE YOU A BABALAWO ? WHY YOU NO WAN PRAY.”
Oga sha did not issue the query again. Even when I went to his office to remind him that he has not sent the query oh and its almost close of business, oga just laughed and said “Edegbai, let that matter go”. I would have loved to respond to a query on religious rebellion.
Barr. Victor Edegbai AKA Grandpa is a father of many nations, positive thinker, and friend of many. I like trouble, because I be lawyer.
