Love Quest 2

It is this conundrum that began to consume Obad, one that he knew he had to resolve soon.

He laid strewn across his single wooden based bed as he his thoughts raced away, he dozed off and awoke to the Sunday morning and emerged bathed in an intensity of sunshine so powerful that its rays blinded him as he levered open one of his shut eyelids.  The crimson rays of the sun streaked through the gaps of the curtain drapes that afforded his bedroom privacy. In the University apportioned guesthouse suite where he made abode due to the delays in obtaining a University flat.

Fleeting thoughts crossed his mind of how much richer his life and other endeavours might be with a companion at his side. He also felt that taking a lass as a wife may reduce or eliminate unwarranted interests from the ladies.  He then resolved that he would be intentional in escalating his friendship with the lasses to beyond the platonic. But he desired to commit all to God’s hands, he believed that his end and beginning had to be in God’s will and a momentous step like this could not be contemplated with out a spot of prayer and fasting. 

He set aside a day of the week for regular prayer and fasting, it would contain reflection and times of listening.  It was while he was resolving all these he came across a Whatsapp message from an old female colleague, they had been classmates in the University. Kemi, a tall, elegant lady, bathed in chocolaty complexion. 

Her face was dominated by very prominent and sultry eyes with a wide smile capable of subduing the most resistant of men. She was regal in appearance and quite astute. She had made her home in Lagos and never really settled down to marriage. At University she was platonically acquainted with Obad with no hint of the romantic, but they got on well.  She was now the Director of Public Prosecutions, Lagos and by a canny coincidence she had began to feel bereft and thought to herself that all work and no play was beginning to make her a dull lass.  

Love Quest

A Sojourner's Return

Love Quest

Obad, the cerebral intellectual was almost 40 years old but had never found true love with a lady.  In all his years of sojourn in England none of the bevies of beauty took his fancy, none met his high demands in terms of stature, poise, taste or elegance. His preference had always been to be immersed in research, attend conferences and play political punditry on the small screen. It is these passions he cherished and loved and cast a cloud over his ability to develop a future partnership with a lass. He saw mutual exclusivity in most things and dividing his passions with a lass had not been on his menu.  But now he was situate in a University environment, away from the land of his birth, the rules were different. 

In England there were unspoken and unwritten rules and the relative wealth meant no one threw themselves at blokes, it simply was not necessary except you were deeply smitten or ravaged in craven lusts. But in this new environment, his country of origin, the land of his fathers, the rules of the game were different and sometimes confusing. In the close knitted community of the University campus, a code of conduct existed on paper, which indicated no fraternization was permitted between staff and student and these limited his options. He had up to this point seen himself as a father of all and a lover of none but the pressure had become intense.

Obad’s father, Oye, the renowned emeritus Professor of law at the London School of Economics now advancing in his 70s, and was on his case. He was a man of distinguished gait, standing at over 6 feet inches with ripples of slenderness, greying on the temples, clean-shaven and now slightly stooped by the ravages of age.  He always had his brown coloured wooden pipe placed firmly on his lips as he smoked away his tobacco effortlessly and intermittently between conversations. In his regular conversations with Obad through the WhatsApp he had began to place pressure on the need for him to be blessed with grandchildren before his days reached expiry. He had even begun to wonder whether the young man was gay.  In the last telephone conversation he had asked: “Obad are of a difference sexual persuasion?”  Obad responded tersely: “Dad why are you being so obtuse, why don’t you simply ask whether I am gay instead using the native round about style of asking?” The Professor then replied: “So are you? He continued with slight exaggeration: “I have never seen you with a lady you have never introduced any to me or to your mother. We are entitled to be worried and to seek answers!” In exasperation Obad shot back: “I prefer not to discuss my private life with you and I assure you there is nothing to worry about.”

The conversation weight heavily on his mind and had sown a seed, struck a cord and had began to needle at him.  He began to surreptitiously survey the terrain and did not quite find any suitable prospects, he was now restricted to the field of teaching and non-teaching staff but he had a principle, do not mess where you work.  It is this conundrum that began to consume Obad, one that he knew he had to resolve soon.

First Lecture -2

In careful repitition line by line, word for word from the notes on his laptop screen, in embedding of the Southern England tinge Obad began to speak on elements of a ‘Contract’.  It was with the question ‘…Are all Agreements Contracts?’ that he sought to start. However, from the squint in their eyes, the frowns burrowed on some foreheads, and the puzzled look on many eyes he realised he was losing them. In puzzlement he thought he had up until now never met a rhetorical challenge and without a corresponding triumph. 

He decided that now was the moment for innovation, inventiveness and creativity and Obad abandoned the ineffective crouch his laptop had become.  he drew on something out of the realms of the dramatic that lay latent within him.  He was translated in time to his days Secondary School days when he headed the African and Dramatic Society and featured in a few dramatic sketches. He identified two students, beckoned on them to rise up from their seats and to proceed to the front of the class. He announced to the incredulity of the class the intention to put up a drama sketch and then proceeded to give the budding actors some hastily crafted lines. One acted as the father and the other as a University student. 

The script unfolded with the father making a grandiose promise to purchase a brand new Mercedes-AMG C43 4Matic Coupe, which featured a twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 that developed 362 hp and 384 lb-ft of torque and a all-wheel-drive system with a rear-biased torque distribution for more neutral handling, and a gearbox which has two additional gears for a total of nine, If his daughter was able to achieved a first class degree from the University. 

With scrupulous faithfulness to the script the daughter made the first class and then approached her father to fulfill the terms of the earlier agreement.  The father balked and gave her N200,000 to celebrate with her friends, suggesting the promise was simply made to encourage to heights so great. The daughter refused his gift and entreaties insisting on the fulfillment and complete settlement of the promise. With the father unrelenting, the drama ended with Obad questioning whether the daughter could successfully sue the father. The students in excitement offered various versions of their answers with many suggesting that a promise was one to be kept and therefore the father was liable.     

To be Contd.

First Lecture…

A Sojourner's Return

First Lecture…

Obad quickly got acquainted and close to a few lecturers.  There was Bamiye also a recent returnee from Australia, a quirky eccentric who possessed charms at the amiable level but it was cloaked by his volcanic temper, the eruption could be turned on and off like a switch. His expertise was in Medical Law, which he acquired from his first training as a medical doctor in the University of Australia.  He possessed a Doctorate in Law but had not been called to the bar, to practice as a lawyer. He straddled two faculties, that of Law and Medicine.  There was Dr. Amezie, a young petite lady, who wore beauty up her sleeves effortlessly and her brilliance was always on display like jewelry.  Her face was angular, her high brows distinct, lips thin but nicely shaped, her complexion very light and of moderate height.  She loved to bear braid of the intricate variety on her head with beads of varying colours to make her distinctive.  She was married to a British gentleman but became close to Obad on account of her perception that he was a man of integrity and fidelity.  There was the greying Professor, a ladies man, quite advanced in age but seemingly very spry, he always had a twinkle in his eye when a bevy of ladies were in view. It was rumoured that he engaged in numerous escapades with staff members but none was ever proven.  It was this context that defined and shaped Obad’s first lecture in the faculty. 

Obad was usually deep in thought and has he prepared for his debut as a lecturer he thought that in his short period of existence, he had pleaded before judges, campaigned in the presence of thousands of people, through BBC faced the world on the airwaves, preached in countless of Churches and found himself influencing numerous audiences. The experience and knowledge of all these encounters had boosted his pride, inflated his ego and sated him in unspeakable arrogance.  It was with these he ventured into the lecture theatre to meet the students. But nothing within all that range prepared him to face a class of students at the University on that fateful day.

The first lecture was delivered under the auspices of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, a borrowed course, Media Law. He was wracked with anxiety. He needed a crouch to deliver him from his sudden inadequacies. Questions flew across his mind in a flash. How would he disseminate knowledge of Media Law, its intricacies, its nuances and its overall objectives.  He pondered whether the students would appreciate him or would they grasp his words or he would become a quavering of a man who simply could not hack it?

He approached the lecture theartre populated with rows and rows of students, presenting a riot of colours of all shapes and sizes with a nod and wink to the corporate dress sense. He flashed his brand new slim, sliver coloured Apple mac-computer for functionality, for it contained all his notes.  Without much more of a glance in their direction, he ushered himself to the wooden University branded rostrum neatly placed in the front of the theatre.  

In what seemed like a long silence, descended upon lecture theatre, and the tension became palpable. He could have sworn his imagination conveyed from outside, the howling of winds, flapping sounds of the wings of bats flying back from their insect hunting, interrupting him as his maiden lecture was about to commence.

To be Contd.