TO ‘EBONY’ AND ‘IVORY’: A TRIBUTE.

By Mohammed Adamu

Preamble
At last I found it. Yes, the picture that speaks a thousand words! I knew I had it somewhere. Because I know I keep virtually every ‘keep-able’ memento about myself! I do not know how or why I do it, but I do it!

If, some fourty or more years ago, you had left a note for me on the back of as measly as a piece of toilet paper, chances are that I will still have it -somewhere in my archival junkyard! And that I’ll get it whenever I want it!

I had been meaning to get this one photo since a long time ago. This was 1973; in my Primary 3 at the St. Michael (later Waziri) Primary School in Minna. I am the flea you see in the serenity of the oil paint.

Jonathan told you that as a school-going child he was ‘shoe-less’? Well then, check me out here: I was the quintessential ‘shoeless’ one! In fact as you can see, I was also shirtless -to boot! Unless you count the raggedy ‘thing’ I had on, for a ‘wear’! But I bet you daren’t!

And if you wonder why my legs look this riotously bi-racial (one ivory white, the other ebony black) the caveat is: I hadn’t the Jackson fitiligo on one. I had only some ‘mud’ dry up on it!

Yes, I must’ve sauntered into class that day from a failed fishing adventure in some pond. This was one of the highlights of my vagrant childhood days. I must’ve managed to pull one leg out of the mud just before the other got mired up, and didn’t even bother to wash it up afterwards!

In truth, up to my Primary 3 (and which this picture poignantly marks), I was a school truant both of necessity and of choice. I came to School only when I came to School! Meaning I had to have a pretty ‘good’ reason to be in school.

Reasons such as: after Quranic School, there was either no kid around to go look for trouble with, or that in our trouble-seeking we had strayed close to school and I probably thought that I should pop in to hear some ‘haram’ on the ‘boko’ board!

I remember we even had a song for the ‘Whiteman’s’ School, thus: ”Yan makarantan boko-ko, babu karatu, ba Sallah, sai yawan zagin Mallam”! It is a poetic description of Western education’s paucity of the learning and worship curves, and its rendition as being suffused only with ethico-moral dis-reputation.

So then with ‘liberal’ parents such as my unlettered ones who, as long as we were regular at Islamic School didn’t care where we went thereafter, attending the White man’s ‘haramic boko’, (even as irregularly and as shabbily as I did), was just abominable enough!

BOKO AVENUE
Meaning that going to primary school for me then, was always with some kind of ‘anyway, since there’s nothing else to fill my idle space and time, why not?’

And so now that (on this day in the picture) the breeze of idle delinquency had brought me close to ‘Boko Avenue’, I had said to myself ‘why not?’ -even though it didn’t take long thereafter before I began to regrettably feel like the proverbial randy he-goat that went on a rump and instead, itself returned home pregnant!.

I had been away from class almost a week before that day; and like I said, even on that pictorial day, neither coming to School nor being in the classroom was actually the intention.

The intention rather was to just pass by; hoping I might be lucky our Afro-haired regular teacher (seated here in the middle) wasn’t around so I could shake the class a little and possibly disarrange the chairs and desks before he got back!

But ‘surprise-surprise’ there were now, that day, these two uniformed female teachers in the Class who had been posted from Women Teachers College, WTC Minna, on Teaching Practice. Two beautiful ‘babes’ even by our childhood barometer: one Ebony black and the other Ivory white -like my racially segregated legs.

And it was the Ebony black one that shouted at me: “Who is this? Why are you not in your uniform?”. And as always, I replied in Hausa: “they are at home”!

“What do you mean by “they are at home?”, she queried further! And even before I could say something, the Ivory one now also joined the ‘lynch-the-ununiformed-late-comer-kid’ yelling “Are you supposed to come to school like this?”

Yes, that was how she put it: ‘LIKE THIS’! And of course that had to be the best way to describe my appearance: And I said to her, again in Hausa “No, I was not in my uniform because I was not coming from home. I was coming from somewhere else”.

But it got them both all the more enraged. And it was at this point that the Afro-haired substantive Teacher who had long grown used both to my sporadic absenteeism and my gypsy appearance, cut in with a rather forlorn undertone, to say: “Just leave that boy alone”!

But the Ebony black still said “Well, today will have to be the last you will be coming to our class without uniform, right?” She held and twisted one of my earlobes as she stressed the last word “right?”

And even though it hurt really bad, I sucked it up, and even still managed to smile that ‘I don’t-care’ Okocha kind of after-miss-smile, as I was wondering ‘why does she even think that she will see me again?’

THE TEST
And then as I settled on my dusty desk, I had noticed that every pupil was now busy pulling out their biros and pencils and also pulling off the centre pages of their note books.

Ebony and Ivory were about to conduct a special test I learnt, to determine who their Class Monitor would be. The pupil with the highest score and the one next to him or her, would be Monitor and Assistant Monitor respectively.

Not for our kind, I thought. Moreover I had neither a notebook to tear from nor a biro or pencil to use. In fact if I had my way, I would just have quietly sneaked out to escape this trap I had walked myself in.

I had come out to fish; but here I was, netted like a fish myself! But what could I do other than I just regretfully sit there watching, until some five or ten minutes into the test Ebony had cited me and yelled again: “You! Why are you not writing?”

I wanted to say that my notebooks (just like my uniforms), were at home; and that because I was actually coming from somewhere else (not home), I did not presently have them with me; before Ivory quickly figured out my situation and grabbed the next kid’s notebook to pull a sheet for me as Ebony herself clued-up to go get me a bic biro from her bag!

I was like: ‘as if she knew….’! Because for me, already crushing on my teacher even at that kiddy age, it felt a sense of romanto-talismanic triumph using Ebony’s pen.

And soon the test was over; and we all went on break where, at least, I now had both the time (to make up my mind on not returning to class) and the opportunity (to do so without anyone knowing).

But I discovered every time I thought about Ebony, I wanted to return to Class.I felt that even as she was tough with me, there was, beneath that toughness, the gentleness of King Kong when he palmed the hostaged beauty -a ‘liking’ I knew only time and space would reveal!

Anyway, I returned to the classroom! And thank God that I did! Because by the time we returned, the name of the pupil with the highest test score had been boldly written on the blackboard. I hadn’t noticed it initially, until Ebony had suddenly asked aloud “Who is Mohammed Adamu? Stand up!”

And just as she started saying to the Classroom “That is your new Class Monit…”, she froze as I was half-risen, turning to look at Ivory, as both of them were now in utter bewilderment!

By the way, I was still at sea up to this befuddling moment, because I did not have the vaguest clue what was happening or was about to happen.

Because almost simultaneously with Ebony’s inconclusive announcement, the boy seated next to me was also celebratorilly calling my attention to the blackboard, as I was rising up and wondering “what have I done again?”

TO BE OR NOT TO BE
But now I was getting it. I was the test’s best scorer and now the new Class Monitor. And even I knew that this was not going to be possible. Ebony and Ivory obviously did not want it; no one in the Class wanted it, and hell even I did not want it!

Ebony and Ivory were now already mouth agape and hands on the upper chests, finding it hard to believe that the queer-looking, serially-truanting and terribly-late-coming pupil (me) was the one with the highest score and therefore the new Class Monitor!

By the way, I was still deep at sea when Ebony finally screamed at me as I stood up “You again?” And at this point I was really so mad inside I wished that vernacular was allowed in class so that in Hausa I could just have thundered: “Wai menene ne!!!?”

What the hell had I done again? Because I thought that I had already been warned that after that day I could no longer come to class “coming from somewhere else?”

And I soon sensed that Ebony and Ivory were now actually arguing about whether the whole test idea as a yardstick for selecting the Class Monitor was not after all a bad one?

Ivory, speaking in Hausa, was suggesting that the whole plan had to be aborted while Ebony was reminding her that they had both not only made a promise to the pupils, but they had told them when they first reported, that only the brightest deserved the Class Monitorship.

But it was obvious they both had good cases: Ivory was arguing for the interest of pedagogy and for doctrine of necessity. She was right to think that with a pupil like me emerging as winner, it had become necessary to abort the process.

Else how could I, the worst example in all matters of character, appearance, attendance and timeliness of attendance, possibly be the one to provide the desirable leadership expected from Class Mornitorship?

Ebony on the other hand was arguing both for morality and the rule of law. They made the rule. They gave their word. They initiated and executed the process. They anticipated no one in particular to win. They had committed to the fact that anyone of the pupil could win and would be eligible to lead. -including the gypsy one, me!

The mistake they had made was ruling me out. And the mistake I made was giving it my all when I wrote the test. Now we were both stuck with each other!

THE ‘UNIFORMLESS,’ MONITOR
And even though the Afro-haired teacher had now again advised them to leave that Hausa boy alone because, as he rightly warned, “After today, you may not see him for another week”, in the end both Ebony and Ivory had now mutually agreed to give me a try before taking action.

This was how Yours Truly, (lord of the muddy ponds), was finally announced as Class Monitor, -together with Usman (seated on the left side of Ivory), who had come Second.

And it was after that, that this picture was shot, as the inaugural photograph for my ascension to the Monitorship of my Class! I was probably the first ‘uniformless’ Class Monitor you will ever know!

But on a serious note, this was the turning point in my life. After I had been briefed about what was required of me as a Class Monitor, and after I had listened to Ebony’s and Ivory’s doubts about me, I went home that day just thinking about how not to disappoint them!

And even though I did not know how, I had said to myself ‘first you must come to Class every day, and in uniform, and right on time! I could do this; and I did it! And the rest is now history!

Epilogue
And it is all thanks to these two beautiful female Teacher-Trainee-Students of Women Teachers College, WTC Minna. It was all thanks to Ebony and Ivory. But mostly Ebony! Because soon, she would, in fact, prove my childhood crush-hunch right, that deep down too, she had taken a liking of me.

Apparently she had told my story in their Boarding House, because she would later suggest that I pick any pupil-friend of mine to escort me as I paid a weekend visit to their dormetry where she was to unveil me as her child-prodigy-Class-Monitor, and also treat me to a students’ banquet.

And thereafter both Ebony and Ivory had even mobilized some of their Class mates to come to the house and see if they could talk my parents into taking my education a little more seriously than they did.

This actually marked the end of my delinquent vagrancy, and the beginning, actually, of my education. It had everything to do with the childhood determination not to fail -or better still, to impress- these two angels that God had sent to illuminate my life, -Ebony and Ivory!

And even though I have tried several times in the past to find out, I still do not have the vaguest idea where Ebony and Ivory are today. But my prayer is that they are both alive and in good health; and that God may reward them -both here and in the hereafter, for giving me a chance and for not having given up on me even when they both had every reason to!

I should never forgive myself if, thanks to them, God has blessed me with the gift of writing, and I do not use it to tell their story!