By Habeeb Olokooba
Accounting for a memorable day, the cloud had dissipated and as a result, the soil of Usman Danfodio University Sokoto was covered with rain. At night, the dark cloud sat comfortably on the moon, making darkness the order of the night. That same night, one need not be told that the atmosphere is cold as students living at the school hostels had gone to their respective blocks. Few ones you got to see outside were cladded in their thick clothes.
On that particular night, I was in our room, on the upper bunk, waiting to die the death of the night after finishing the special delicacy prepared by my roommate, Rasheed. Rasheed has been to me an intimate friend right from secondary school.
“the legal occupants will soon be back” Rasheed had said a week earlier. “We had better get our apartment before they return.”
On occasions like this, I would urge him to be sedated because when the time comes, we would find our way.
Fast forward to the day, I was there laying mute and waiting for sleep to journey me through the night. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” a hard knock on our room door jolted me back from sleep. Who could that be, had been the only thought on my mind.
“Who is that,” shouted Rasheed. “he should be a legal occupant ” I guessed.
Without a second thought, I unbolted the door to check who was there. I met a short dark guy, cladded in a navy blue cloth with big baggages, with the appearance of which made him look like someone that won’t vacate the campus after the semester. He pushed me aside and entered with one of his bags and came back to fetch others. I helped in carrying some “anyways being good to the owner will make you have your way” I thought. After all these, I locked the door and went to bed.
Earlier, we had thought when we arrived on campus that all the students that we met in the room were legal occupants, not until during our stay in the room as illegal occupants with no challenge.
Funny right? Yes, I later got to find it so either, but that was the belief we had innocently. Long story short, a student who has been acting as though he was a 400 level student acted humbly and looked pitiful. It was not funny though, when the owner of the bunk came to claim the ownership, Although before this fact came to know, I already opted for my own hostel where I was allocated legitimately.
Unbelievable it was when this same student with big baggage, acting like a final year student confessed he was a 100 level student. “I’m a 100 level student of Agric, ” he said. I nearly ran mad when I heard that, because he has been giving us a tough time, a jambito like us. “I guessed everything is quite clear now,” I said to him.