CHRONICLES OF AN ABUSITE: GETTING EXPELLED ISN’T REALLY DIFFICULT

In my first year on campus, I think I tried everything there was to try in order to see the full extent of the law in ABU (that’s if any existed). Believe it or not, stopping at the fountain to do anything at all is against the law, walking around girls’ hostels after 12midnight is also. Well my story today is about how I almost got expelled for what you have never tried I bet you. On the third week after resumption, I was hurrying from my room in Suleiman Hall A2 40 to watch a match in Social Center (Aliyu Mustapha social center for you non-Abusites) and in the process, I locked my keys in the room. It really wasn’t a problem at the point I was leaving to watch the match as in my naïve brain then, I could get it out easily when my roommates (who were all away for the weekend) got back. At the end of the match, what was a good victory for Arsenal Fc turned out to be sour for me when I realized just then that my room was on the topmost floor of the block and there was no way I could use the open window. Immediately, a brilliant idea crossed my mind. There were yaro-boys everywhere looking to make little cash from any job one threw at them. I quickly found myself one and asked him if he could climb through the back of the block, the way had seen Jackie do several times ( In-between the columns all the way to the top) . Like hell even if he had been training for the day I’d ask him to do such, he still wouldn’t have made it. Anyway, he was two rooms up when a man turned round the block and asked the boy to get down. Since he was in plain clothes, it didn’t occur to me that he could have been a security personnel. I challenged him and he just quietly bundled I and the boy to their post in front of Suleiman Hall. There I was told to write a statement and I foolishly did. I gave every information in crystal form, even where my father worked as at then. I expected to leave the place after the statement, but when shifts changed and I was still there, that was when it occurred to me that I was in trouble. I had handed my ORIGINAL ADMISSION LETTER (which they got from the room with magic) to the hall admin and I had no room to sleep in. Like hell I probably wasn’t going to need the key till Monday as it was a Saturday. By 6pm, I started to plead my case and beg. I was getting close to tears when a gentle man in the office explained what kind of mess I had found myself in. he explained that they believed I was in collaboration with the boy and we were trying to break into the room to steal stuff. I couldn’t believe my ears!! I had just given them my admission letter from the same room but obviously it wasn’t enough to clear me. Also, apparently there had been an incident on the next block and by my single act of foolishness, I had put the poor boy in the same case of theft I had roped myself into. I was sad and confused because I was told stealing was only punished with expulsion from this school. I tried to call everyone I knew but they were all jambites like me who hadn’t even matriculated. How could they help me or even dare show up in a classic Nigeria Police case. How I got out of that trouble till today, I really can’t tell but by 9pm, they handed me the keys I locked in and told me they would keep their eyes on me…..well they kept to their every word.