HUSBANDS FOR SALE CONTINUED

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 4

That day being a Saturday, I didn’t go to work so I decided to prepare something nice to eat for my household staff. When the gardener arrived from his house I summoned him and inquired from him who gave him the card.

He responded by saying he presented the card himself. I was astonished.

“So you mean you went all that length to pay people to design a card for me?”

 “Madam, I did it myself” was his reply.

“But you are not educated, so how could you have designed the card and add so beautiful a note to it?”

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 5

  Ever since James became my gardener he always dressed awkward and always communicated to me in a language we call pidgin English. His cv portrayed him as a primary school certificate holder so I concluded he was an illiterate. But as he revealed his real self to me I just sat down watching him in great astonishment.

“Madam, I am not an illiterate as you think. I am a Bachelor’s degree holder in Production engineering from the University of Benin. After my youth service I had very high hopes that I would soon secure a well paid job and begin to live a life worthy of my status.

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 6

I wrote and submitted many applications to various companies. Many of them never bothered to reply me and those which replied seemed to have only one thing in common: Embargo in employment giving the economic meltdown syndrome as excuse for their action.

After three years of waiting for a meaningful source of employ without results, I decided to take up teaching appointment so as to earn some money to keep hope alive. I worked in five different schools one after another yet the propertors would not pay regularly the meager sum of money they agreed to pay initially as salaries. After three years of struggling with that type of life, I decided to call it quits and I sat down at home to think of a way out of my predicament.

THEBIRTHDAY GIFT 7

It was during this period that one of my former colleagues informed me that he is now a gardener and the take home pay was good and regular that should in case I am interested he would help link me up as soon as a good opportunity comes up.

That is how I became a gardener. I had to rearrange my credentials to look like I am a primary six certificate holder so as to avoid unnecessary embarrassment. To me it is very unthinkable that a university graduate should be working as a common gardener but I need to do it so as to keep my body and soul together so that my spirit will not depart out of frustration.

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 8

The words emanating from his mouth touched a sore spot in my heart. Prior to this time, I thought that of all the people in the world I was the one suffering the most. I never knew there were millions of people I was far better off than.

I thought of the economic system of my country. What type of political system is this that would turn our male graduates from the universities into beggars, taking menial jobs that do not befit their status and turning the females into prostitution so that they can survive.

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 9

Was this the type of nation our founding fathers had in mind when they gave their all so we can achieve independence from our colonial masters, with many of them dying in the process? Do our leaders realize that for every one million naira they unlawfully embezzle, they have succeeded in destroying the hopes, aspirations and dreams of many youths  and their families?

This is really unfair and I know I have to begin to do something to cause a change. Since I do not possess the wherewithal to do anything positive in large scale atleast I can begin something somewhere from where I am no matter how small.

 Story continues