A donkey in a horse pen

There is a boys secondary school (high school) in Nigeria called city academy, situated in Zaria, Kaduna state. It’s a boarding school for the upper class kids, opened in the year 1998. School fees per term was N45000 (about USD500) then. It got a reputation for academic excellence in a very short time and it became famous, as a result, rich people troop to send their kids there. In the year 2004, the school graduated its first set of students. Politicians, business men, and senior civil servants were invited, that added to the school’s fame. As a result of the school’s academic excellence, it made it in the list of top twenty secondary schools in Nigeria. Year 2005 came and it was time to graduate the second set. Again, big men were invited and that added fame upon fame for the school. City academy then became a pride for the elite whose children school there. A poor man’s son can only admire. The proprietor who also was from a poor family decided to do an act of charity by creating an opportunity for the underprivileged to study in his school. So, when it was time for entrance exam into JSS1 (Junior secondry school 1/class 1), he forwarded invitations to a number of primary schools (for the poor) in his community to send one pupil each for the entrance exam, for whoever gets the highest score gets a full scholarship into city academy. The exam was conducted and a boy named Bilal Manu got the scholarship. Bilal and his family jubilated his success, of course they have every reason to jubilate, but there are challenges ahead. Since city academy is a boarding school, Bilal needs a lot of essential goods in preparation for boarding school life and his parents cannot afford all that, so they sought assistance from the community and people complied generously. There are even bigger challenges ahead for Bilal, he’ll be the only poor man’s son in city academy before other scholarship students join in the coming years. 

School resumption time met Bilal fully prepaid for his first term in JSS1 at city academy. He left home for Zaria in the morning and arrived in the evening. At the school gate, his luggage was checked for contrabands and nothing was found. He was then directed to the financial controller’s office for documentation, then to the school clinic and finally to the hostel. At the hostel, he was given a mattress and assigned to a room where he was given a bed and a locker for his belongings. He was then asked to move his box to the box room. The school looks very nice, it deserves the reputation, Bilal thought. That was the beginning of his journey in boarding school. As a junior student, he has to tolerate all forms of maltreatment from the senior students, that’s normal in Nigerian boarding schools. There seems to be no big difference between him and the rich kids for now because money is not allowed in school; phones, personal computers, food of any kind, perfume and deodorants are all not allowed. That struck a balance in status between students. The school feeds the students, it also has its currency named coupons. Students are given coupons once every week; 500 coups each for the junior student and 750 coups each for the senior students. The money is not free, a student’s parent has to deposit money in the student’s account, domiciled in the account office (the school’s bank), in the beginning of every term, otherwise he won’t get a penny to spend. For Bilal, he gets it free since he’s a scholarship student. There is only one shop in the school, everyone goes there to spend during break time and after class hours. Students go to the dinning hall three times daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively at specified times. During meals at the dinning hall, students find food, water, crockery and cutlery already placed on dinning tables for them. Eight chairs surround each table for eight students. Each student is assigned a table at the beginning of every term and that becomes permanent for that whole term. Each table becomes like a small family since students meet three times daily to eat together.. Life is tough in a boarding school especially for junior students since they have to adapt to seniority and bullying. There is time for everything, so students are reminded using a bell by the time keeper. Within a week from Monday to Friday, students leave the hostel for classes at 7:00am to clean the classes; assembly is called at 7:45am, and classes start 8:00am. First break is 9:15am, students go to the dinning hall for breakfast and return at 9:45am. Second break is from 11:30am to 11:45am. Classes close at 1:00pm. Lunch is at 2:00pm after which extracurricular activities begin until 3:45pm. Sports begin at 4:00pm until 6:00pm. Dinner is from 7:15pm to 7:45pm. Preps begin 7:45pm until 9:45pm and 10:00pm is lights out time (time to sleep). Saturday is inspection day. Students do general cleaning and wait for inspectors to come and judge which hostel in best. Sunday is a free day. Five weeks after resumption comes the visiting day. On that day, parents come from different places to see their kids. Bilal expected his parents to come but they didn’t. He was disappointed, but he later understood that his parent’s inability to come was a blessing for him, because all parents came in exotic cars. On that day, he saw clearly the difference between him and the other students, a donkey in a horse pen he is. His parents don’t even have a bike, so if they should come, they’ll have to use public transport and that alone will let everyone know of his social status. Normally in a visiting day, parents bring a lot of goodies for their kids, that is allowed only on that day. Those whose parents come share with those whose parents didn’t, because even for the rich kids, at times some parents fail to come due to personal engagements. That served as a relief for Bilal. Three weeks after visiting day comes the open day. On that day, parents come to check their children’s performance in the continuous assessment. Open day serves as another visiting day. Bilal’s parents again failed to come but he didn’t worry because he didn’t even expect them to. Exams begin two weeks after open day. After exams, students stay for a week in school awaiting their results. Student collect their results on the final Saturday of the term and on that day, parents come to take their children home for holiday. Bilal and two other unfortunate rich kids whose parents failed to come due to reasons unknown to them, were left in school. They slept in the school clinic. Early on Sunday, Bilal was the first to leave because the school sponsors his journey back home. Throughout Bilal’s days in city academy, his parents never came for visiting and that was part of the reason other students got to know who he is. They accepted him for who he is and treated him like family. He graduated as one of the best students in his set in the year 2011. His parents didn’t attend his graduation ceremony because his father died when he was in JSS2 and his mother died when he was in SS1 (senior secondary school 1/class 4). Two friends of his father attended the ceremony on behalf of his parents. It was a memorable one.

After secondary school, Bilal didn’t get admission into the university the year he graduated. He got admission into Abubakar tafawa balewa university (ATBU) Bauchi at the end of the following year (2012) in the month of December as a chemical engineering student. Registration for first semester started in January 2013. Bilal was sponsored collectively by generous people in his community. He applied for scholarship under an oil firm (total oil and gas) in his second year at ATBU. He won the scholarship and the firm started paying a year after, i.e in his third year (2016). In his fourth year at ATBU, i.e in the year 2017, city academy old students’ association (CAOSA) organized a reunion. Bilal decided he won’t attend. He can’t afford to attend because he doesn’t want to look different. He was assigned the role of passing every information regarding the reunion to his set by the organisers of the reunion. That role will make it compulsory for him to attend the reunion and he doesn’t like that. Luckily for him, the reunion failed and was postponed to the following year (2018), he was relieved by that. Year 2018 came and Bilal was in his final year. CAOSA fixed a date for the reunion but chose a different person to represent Bilal’s set. Bilal was happy about that, because he has already made up his mind that he will abscond, for the same old reason; that he doesn’t want to look different. He knows that almost all the attendants of the reunion have their own cars, he doesn’t; they use luxury phones, he uses a very cheap one; their clothing is almost royal, his’ are very much inferior. They outclass him by an unimaginable margin and he doesn’t want to look like a donkey in a horse pen one more time. The reunion didn’t fail this time and he absconded as he planned. He knows that he’ll be treated like family if he attends but he doesn’t care, because he doesn’t want to look different. He has vowed never to attend any gathering of city academy old students except funerals and he’s okay with that.