Teachers I Will Never Forget | Part I

The teacher that lied a lot.

I.

His name is Mr. Ọláwùnmí. He lied to us a lot, and some people believed him. I did not.

II.

Mr. Ọláwùnmí was my Basic Science teacher when I started JSS 1 in ICJHS. His classes were one of the most feared, because his presence meant someone gets flogged, and yeah, someone gets beaten. He stopped teaching us when we had one NYSC corp assigned to our school, and she took to teaching us the subject.

Two years later, I was in JSS 3, and he was the teacher taking the subject. 

He started his lying career by telling us one time that he dated one girl for 11 eleven years. The whole class shouted ‘Wow!’ and he began the story of a girl he dated for 11 years without the both of them having sex with each other. 

‘She’s an Igbo girl,’ I remember him saying. ‘She comes into my room and I’ll be teaching her mathematics from morning till evening, without eating or drinking anything. We did that for 11 years.’

Looking at him, Mr. Ọláwùnmí should be in mid 30’s, I assume. And he used 11 years of his life teaching an Igbo girl mathematics in his room from morning till night? Sir, as how na?

III.

The other time, he told us about the robbery incident that happened in childhood home when he was a teenager. 

It was past midnight. There was a lantern in their living room, and he was trying to finish up his assignment. Suddenly, there was a break in: Some robbers had found their way into their house. He sat where he was looking at one of the robbers, unafraid. 

Then he heard his father’s voice, ‘Ta ni yen? Fun ni igbati!’ He said he stood up from where he was sitting and landed a heavy slap on the armed robber and he fell to his knees. The others ran away, and the one on his knees was earnestly begging him to let him go. 

‘I was not afraid,’ he said, ‘and I single-handedly handed him over to the police when they came. My father was in one corner smiling at me.’

From where to where, please?

IV.

A third lie I could remember was this:

He said he went to the bank to make a deposit or transfer, I can’t recall. He was talking to one of the bank staff when he heard noises and suddenly, pandemonium everywhere. What happened? 

‘One of the AC caught fire,’ he said, ‘and everyone was scampering for safety. Even the security guards were running out of the hall. Ask me what I did. Ask me.’

‘What did you do, sir?’ we asked him.

‘I didn’t do much. I just went to the AC, blow breeze, and everything went off. I did touch or do anything. I just breeze out of my mouth.

‘What are they calling those people? Ehen, firefighters. They came and were asking me how I did it. I told them I’ll not share my secret with them. That was how I saved the day at a bank.’

Some of my classmates were clapping, and some were saying ‘Gbefun!’ because what in the seven days of the week did we just hear?

V.

A fourth lie:

‘Some of you here already know that I like football. I love it with my life. In fact, I love it more than I love my wife.’

What an odd thing to say to JSS 3 students.

‘One day,’ he continued, ‘I was at a sports centre watching a football match, when my phone began ringing in my pocket. I brought it out of my pocket to see who was calling.

‘It was my mother. I paid it no mind and returned to watching the match. She called and called and called. Almost 16 missed calls.

‘After the persistent call, I decided to pick. I came out of the centre and stood in front of it, as there was less noise there. It was close to the road and I watched vehicles speed by I swipe up the answer button. 

‘“Hello,’ I said to my mother.

‘“Baba yin ti ku.” She broke the news to me. I stood where I was, shocked, too stunned to speak. 

‘I did not know when I moved to the middle of the road, sat down, and began crying profusely. All the cars and buses stopped moving. People were begging me to leave the road; I refused to, as my father had just died. Everything halted. There was no movement on that road for more than 40 minutes.’

The class was looking at this man in confusion. The audacity to lie to our faces!

But he wasn’t done yet: ‘That’s why any time I’m going to cross the road to the sports centre, all vehicles have to stop for me to walk majestically to the place I watch football.’

One of my classmates, Mogaji, would always cover her nose like she perceived something foul anything Mr. Ọláwùnmí lied. Anything I asked her why she covered her nose, she’d reply, ‘Can’t you hear it? The lie is smelling.’ 

It always made me laugh so hard. 

VI.

Unfortunately, we had some people who believed Mr. Ọláwùnmí. Like my previous class captain in JSS 2, Akeem. 

I had friends in other classes in JSS 3, and he was always telling them lies as well. At break time, we would sit in groups and share the lie he told that week. 

Akeem, on the other hand, never joined in, as he was an ardent believer of Mr. Ọláwùnmí’s lies. ‘How did you know that he’s lying?’ he always countered us. ‘Were you people even there? You people think all adults lie, but Mr. Ọláwùnmí does not. I believe whatever he says.’

‘That one naw concern you o,’ I would always tell him. ‘We don’t believe him, so rest.’

Writing about this now feels nostalgic, and I used to enjoy those lies. But you know what I enjoyed more? The way he told them that made us stand up from our seats and clap, with other students saying ‘Mule!’ or ‘Gbefun!’, and others like Mogaji holding her nose close and laughing so hard under her desk.

What great times to tell lies.

But what if Mr. Ọláwùnmí was saying the truth?