‘Board Chairman’

By Mawuli ZOGBENU

Africa man doesn’t know what romance is oo, especially if he is poor and the wife wants to rest her head on his chest.

The sounds she would often hear on his chest are those of debt: ‘broke, broke, loan, the sound of an alert informing him to repay his loan. It can be as difficult as Mathematics for both the man and his wife.

When I entered secondary school in the early 1990’s, I was a complete nino looking very sheepish the same way I looked when I entered the university later. As a first year student, I found myself greeting everybody I came across whether I knew the person or not but that lasted for only 1 week!

The first tutor I met in Achimota was B’kasa. A young sharp-brain tutor; he looked at me with an unwelcome smile as if to tell me to go back to Kisseman. Motown was not meant for a poor soul like me. That was the feeling I got. I later got to know that he was the one going to teach me Elective Maths.

Me? Elective what? Ajeeei! Here I was in the midst of very wealthy and super intelligent classmates from Christ the King, Morning Star, Martin D Poris, University Primary, Achimota Primary, etc and me from Anunmle JSS where we never spoke English. Anunmle was a hard training ground. A bullu hits you in your stomach and then expects that you should be the one to say; sorry’. But the guys and girls from the above affluent schools? Alla!  Their grammar? Eish! ‘Asuri-suri kontonmire’ whereas some of us from Anunmle, Aayalolo and Kotobaabi were like: ‘you say hort?’

Later after varsity, I got a part-time job as a Mathematics pupil teacher and I was also the Board Chairman for all the pupil teachers who came to teach Mr Dadson’s children. That was my first job after my national service. Ei! The man’s first child, Joseph, failed kportorrrr and the second one was almost strangulated by the school’s headmaster for not knowing anything! I taught her all the robb*sh and she lost interest in attending my class. Their house was near mine.

Having attended UST, the biggest mistake this man made was to have assume that everyone who attended Tek was a ‘sharp-brain’ in Mathematics. Chai! The ego of a university graduate did not allow me to say NO; besides I needed a job to survive. All I said was: ‘No Problem’! I wanted to prove to the man that yes, indeed I go Tek so Maths no be problem at all.

He didn’t know that ‘Tek dey Tek inside’. I didn’t want the man to know that I was empty-headed in maths but there were proper Tek guys born as Maths and Science wizards and witches! Even before the Professor would finished setting the questions, these boys from Presec, Mfantsipim, Geyhey and of course Achimota Science guys knew the answers. Me? Give me the whole year to solve common factorization and whatever would be, would be the same thing that would be! Me and Maths? Tweaaa!

Life had just begun after national service. Nervously and reluctantly, I accepted the job. I was to teach a JHS 2 boy Maths to prepare for BECE.

I often would take the text book and ask him if he knew about ‘Akki Ola’ and the topic for that day would be on Akkiola saaaa till classes ended. Nothing new! In fact it was not easy to pass Maths if you failed to use Akki Ola as your study guide those days. May the Maths Professor’s soul rest in peace!

In teaching this boy, I would pick a mathematical question to solve and it appeared my only specialty was in the topic ‘Transformation’. Simple quadratic equations, even common ‘Factorization’ and ‘Simplification’ were my biggest headache and unfortunately for me that was where my services were needed the most because the boy didn’t really have a problem with ‘Transformation’ but still, my lesson notes were always about ‘Transformation’. Even when we were treating a separate topic, I would still find a way to squeeze ‘Transformation’ into it. Weytin concern me with other areas on Maths.

As for the Pi R square, I made this boy sleep throughout the classes and believe me, that was good for me because I was convinced that if things didn’t go well in the exam, which was obviously going to be the case, I could blame it on the boy not being serious!

Anytime I set a question on the board, this boy would say: “Sir, please the question is wrong”. On almost all occasions, I admitted that the question was indeed wrong without knowing what exactly was wrong even after he’s drawn my attention to it! Kalalalaaaaa! Hei!

In correcting the question, I often got it wrong again and I would be sweating. That would immediately retire this boy into sleeping mode. I would be there talking to myself and praying for the lights to go off so I could close and go home and rest.

On one such occasion, this boy’s father, my employer came to stand to observe how his son was being ‘sharpened’ to ‘blow’ Maths so he could continue to do Physics at the university. The boy’s father would often go like:

‘Joe, I hope you are picking up very fast. You are so lucky to have this man as your Maths tutor. I have heard so much about Mr Mawuli and how he used to top the Petroleum Engineering Class at Tek with first class’. Me? Hmmm! I don’t know where he got that false information about me from. (Ei! Me? Do Engineering? Kai! Yes, there were those who knew the answer to all maths-related questions even before the lecturer finished setting them. ‘R raised to the power kuin times V multiplied by K divided by Z and they already know X! They were born with Maths. Greetings o, Prof. Lord Mensa of the University of Ghana Business School. This guy was a wizard in Mathematics in our Tek days!  Herh! People dey o. Some of us di333…like me, borla!

For me, one of the questions I hated in Maths were questions that go like: ‘If it takes 8 people to weed a football park in 2 days, how many days would it take 20 people to weed the same park? Weytin concern me with football park, Mr Dadson and Sons? 

When the boy’s Dad seemed to praise me with my ‘expertise’ in Maths, I dished out this unnecessary smile to what seemed like an attestation to an otherwise untrue compliment that obviously set me up for more trouble. I was sweating and the man even said in jest how he didn’t like Maths himself and how he envies people like Mr Mawuli, the Maths ‘Professor’ from Tek. It was not the kind of joke that could tickle me to laugh. Kai! All I remember saying while sweating profusely was ‘oh as for Maths, the problem is usually with the students’ o but you see…’. You see what? oh! The boy’s mother brought me a bottle of chilled coke. I gulped down half of it and it was more like a boiling oil, very hot! I wanted to faint but like some ‘terminal illnesses’, they would just make you suffer without dying early!

Fortunately and unfortunately for me, the lights went off at that point.

I thanked God in my heart but that joy was to last only a few minutes. This ‘devil’ of a father brought a rechargeable lamp in order that I would continue with the day’s lessons with his son. ‘The battle is not over yet, Mr Dadson?’, I said in my head. That was when I immediately developed childhood BP. I am sure the boy knew I was going through ‘internal bleeding’.

In fact, I don’t know how I survived that night. The thought of going back to ‘work’ again the following day kept me awake. I gave myself vim but still…or should I resign or feign sickness and disappear?

My student switched off mentally long since and was only physically present in my class just to satisfy all righteousness as far as his stern Dad was concerned!

He went to write the BECE and as to whether he passed or not, the only thing I saw next was that Mr Dadson together with his macho brother who was also a military officer came to my house looking for me. They left a message that when I got home, I should come home for dinner. Di’ what? ‘Trojan horse’ dinner? It was obvious I had caused trouble!

That was when I relocated immediately from my area to Alaji, continued from there to Malam and finally to Tuba! By now, I think my name should change to Sheikh because of all the areas I ran away to go and hude!

I messed the future of the boy up. He is a big boy now, not doing badly though. I am sure he would have been better off with a good Maths Teacher. His Math started on a bad footing from me. His dreams of becoming a Physicist were shattered; I caused it, regrettably. Since then, I have learnt to tell people: ‘I can’t do it’ if I know it is not something I am capable of.

Me to find X? For where? Leave that for those with such IQ’s and cognitive skills. Me too my IQ is this ‘Useless Column’ and remember ‘Don’t Read’!

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