THE NIGERIAN VERSION OF HUMILITY

So I returned from the market this afternoon and decided to rest a bit before facing another major task waiting for me. Someone started knocking on my door. It was a loud, impatient knock (more like hitting the door). 

I was so startled I actually jumped. I got pissed. "Ah ahhn, who is that!" I snapped.

I live in a lodge inside the school, and occasionally, a boarding student would lose his manners and bang my door as though it was he who put me in the apartment. I was ready to deal with whoever that student was. 

"It is me." It was the gatekeeper, a short, middle-aged man. I didn't dislike him. I didn't like him either. But now he was getting my goat. 

"Wait, I'm coming." 

I didn't add 'please.' I was that pissed. I got up and wore a dress. I had been mostly naked. When I opened the door, I found him standing there, exuding haughtiness (that posture surprised me, although I would later come to understand why). 

I pushed my irritation aside and greeted. He replied me, and then just stood there saying nothing afterwards. What was going on? Did he need a favour from me that he was too hesitant to ask?

He had come once to ask for a little amount of money which I had given him. I was already thinking of how I would tell him that I didn't have any money to give him (if that was what he came for), as I had spent all my money at the market. 

But the eyes with which he regarded me were really sending a different message from my own conjectures. So I leaned by my doorpost and waited. 

Suddenly, he stretched his right hand towards me, producing a sealed (with staples) letter. 

"Principal say make I give you this." 

No wonder he had his arms akimbo the whole time. He had the letter at his back. I guess he was trying to spin a surprise on me. He looked at me with a corner of his mouth upturned condescendingly before making an exaggerated about turn, and then bounced away. 

See me see this short man oh! 

Anyway, I wondered what would warrant the principal sending me a letter (I would have thought it was money, but I had been paid for the month already. Moreover, the cashier handled my monthly allowance, not the principal). I hardly even saw him these days. 

I unfolded the letter and what did I find addressed to me? A stern warning asking me to desist from frying chinchin inside my apartment. The reasons were fair enough. Health and safety hazards, and precaution.

Okay oh. We have heard. 

But somehow I was angry. I felt that the gatekeeper was already privy to the content of the letter. Either he had read it before resealing and handing it over, or it had been discussed in his presence. 

So I was being called to order and that gave him the chance, as per divine dispatcher of the sacred scroll, to rudely invade my space and assert his illusive authority over me. 

No wonder he came at me with an overbloated sense of self-importance. 

I just found it funny, later though, how the messenger's tone and attitude was more hostile than the sender's own (wait, the tone of the principal's letter was NOT even hostile).

At this point of typing this paragraph, I'm not even irritated anymore. My little encounter this evening is nothing new. 

Give ciphers just a little responsibility (not even power oh, responsibility) and they become rude, arrogant and more despicable than the combination of APC and PDP.

This is why I don't use people's disadvantaged position as a yardstick for befriending them. 

I've always known that a person being poor or lower in status doesn't preclude the possibility of them being opportunistic, envious, hateful, arrogant and condescending. Their humility and civilness is fleeting. It ends where their power begins. 

It's hard to think kindly about people like these, or go out of your way for them, because

Just give them a little power. Just a little...

25.10.18