The Activist - Season 1 - Episode 14

Episode 5 years ago

The Activist - Season 1 - Episode 14

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Now as the class captain, Tade then began to understand what Ortega may have faced in that position. He had a couple of issues; making more copies of some lecturers hand-outs, some students had issues with lecturers, finding free venues for make-up classes, e.t.c.

And then there was threats from cult members.
He had found much to his dismay, that Dumuje would be a pain in his neck as long as they will be taking courses. Fortunately for Tade, he and Dumuje were taking no other courses, at least until Part 3. However, one or two extra students were trying to use cult influence to force him into wrong decisions. One of such happened during a test period.

Two of the students were colluding to steal a peek at one of the lecturer’s questions. They had made all the plans and were bent on fulfilling them. Unfortunately for Tade, the lecturer had trusted him with the questions which was in a leather bag.

So he was now their target!

Funny enough, it was not really as they saw it.
Dr Fakunle was notorious for been a cynic when it came to dealing with his students. It was on record that he had thee highest number of students retaking his course, and he always obliged to fail them mercilessly if they did not perform. Money did not move him, neither did hot legs or big boobs. He was seemingly so unmovable that it was rumoured that Old Sammy, who was a student in another department taking the course (for it was not only Law students that had the misfortune of facing the man). had to take the course five times, a very unwelcome experience. Of course this only scared fresh students in the department, as stalites had already become hard to his behavior.
But no student wanted to fail.

What he saw in Tade was still a mystery, up til now, but he decided to trust this rich, butter-eyed class rep with a whole lot of things. Hand-outs that he rarely gave the class, shifting of his lectures to suit students ( not like him) and he even once decide to waiver a test he had planned to give the unsuspecting students, all because Tade was not around on that day. This was not surely him!

Of course, such closeness is hard to miss and before Tade could say hey, female students, desperate to move ahead with their lives and dump the man’s course started moving towards Tade, not like he had not had enough attention from the ladies before. Some ‘bad-belle’ guys were insinuating that he and Dr Fakunle were in an intimate relationship, a rumour that led to Tade calling them to order and threatening them with a court order. Others were watching, while a few male students shelved their pride and went to meet him for help. Tade obliged gladly.

Then second semester exams were driving close and he made a stunning announcement.

‘My questions are all objective. They will be here by tomorrow. I expect no one in my office unlee my class rep. Do you understand?’
“Eh? Class rep again!”

Some of the guys could not take it again. Not that it was odd for the class representative to see a lecturer at this period; granted that he was not seeing questions of course. It was more to the character of the person in question. Dr Fakunle was not the kind of man that sees his students during this period, even if it was the class captain.
So some students decided to take action and watched Tade from a distance, planning to trap him and then get anything they could from him. The day they finally chose to implement their plan was the day Dr Fakunle gave him a certain brown bag filled with papers, purportedly question papers for the exams.

Tade was just leaving the department and was passing through what was called Science MiniMart, it was 9pm at this period, when he realised that he was cornered.
Two guys in black outfits bearing the mark of a scorpion at their backs were standing directly in front of him. He turned back to retrace his steps, only to meet three angry looking faces and mean bodies charging at him. With them so close to him, there was no time to run, so he stepped back a bit as they started sending punches at him, one by one.

Tade dodged one and a two, but three became a bit too much and when one of them held his hands at his back, he was ruthlessly exposed and beaten by the other two, at least until an overly sensitive watchman noticed the fight and faced some shots at their direction, causing the others to flee. They did take the bag, however and scurried off before the watchman could make out the identity of any of them. Tade, who was already a bit weak from the beating, moved slowly towards his hostel, aided by the watchman, then decided to take a detour to the Health Centre.

This was a week to the start of examinations.
For a week Tade la!d in the hospital, feeling useless and dejected. He had fallen for a trap and failed to keep what should be important documents away from those thugs. He was sure that those guys were from his department.
However, he had friends which included his ever loyal roomies, Shittu and Made, while Quadri and Malik came in once in a while. That cheered him up, even though he felt an bit empty afterwards.
By thursday, he had recovered well enough to leave the hospital, something he was glad about. However, a cloud seemed to hang on his head as the lecturer who seemed to have put him into so much did not so much as send a student to check after his wellbeing, making Tade feel used.
He relayed his feeling to Malik.

‘You should not take it personal, besides he has not asked for his bag now, has he? Na you dey carry matter for head like say na your money dey inside the bag.’

‘But its one kind. E be like say im no send wetin wan happen to me.’

‘Wetin you expect, that one na persin? See, better face your exams and bone the issue. They no go look say you no well give you special questions, so read.’

Tade looked away from Malik and faced his books, knowing that Malik was right.