Inhalt

The child of nobody

JAMIU AKOLADE ADEYEMI

THE CHILD

OF NOBODY

A PLAY

©JAMIU AKOLADE ADEYEMI

JANUARY 2022

Published by:

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

PROSE: DESTINY OUT OF DILIGENCE

POETRY: LETTER TO TYRANNY

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

This book is a work of fiction and any reference made to any person, place, institution or tribe is a coincidence.

CONTENT

AUTHOR’S NOTE

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

CHARACTERS

THE PLAY

EPILOGIUE

To my amazing Mother, Adeyemi Morenike Monsurat without whom, in the true sense, I would have been nothing.

INTRODUCTION

The Child of Nobody is a tragedy that centered on various attitudes of indecency and abnormalities that are widespread, and that seem to have become inevitable in our extant modern society. Basically, the unlawful pre-marital love affair which exists among the adolescents of nowadays is a major theme of the play.

This anomaly had led to series of unrightful and early intake of pregnancy and in fact, had increased the level of dropouts in many institutions of learning. It had crumbled many homes, shattered many destines and killed many dreams. A Similar major theme of the play is the pressure of parents upon children to study certain courses which are inimical to their future ambitions, eventually culminating with the failure of those children in life.

Without prolonging matters, this book was written during my secondary school heydays when an uncontrollable rate of pre-marital impregnation occupied the atmosphere. The emergence of this weird circumstance, therefore, necessitated the writing of this play.

This book further displays themes akin to love and friendship, fear and idealism, corruption, injustice and bad leadership. To draw home the points, this work expresses the author’s views, opinions and perceptions about the evils bedeviling our agile giant of Africa within the ventricle of our extant world.

Finally, this book shall correct with dramatic effect the wrongs in the global world from the perspective of an African writer. It shall uproot the decadence that has for long tormented our generation and that is likely to torment the generation to come, as a futuristic legacy, giving a pivotal admonition on the path of parents, children, stakeholders and government.

NARRATOR

The play begins with Mr. Kofo, Mrs. Kofo and Meimunant (Tolani) holding a family meeting in their living room to discuss the future career of Tolani (Meimunant) and her two siblings, Bade and Ibikunle. This results in a fierce argument among the trio that eventually ends with Mr. Kofo vetoing the choice of Tolani and her mother. “... I have given you my words. And that is the final say… This case is hereby dismissed.” Mr. Kofo concludes.

As regards scene two, Bade, Tolani and Ibikunle are seen in their living room exchanging banters which is followed by the entry of Babatunde (Mrs. Ajibade’s son) who delivers an invitation letter to Mr. Kofo inviting him to his mother’s sendoff ceremony. Mr. Kofo, there and then, encourages Babatunde to study law but the latter replies that it is his mother’s resolution that he studies English. Mr. Kofo then admonishes him to prepare hard for his forthcoming entry examination.

In scene three Tolani appears in a dialogue with her father (Mr. Kofo) who commands her to go and register for medicine and surgery, advancing reasons why she must be a doctor at all cost. “You have to study a big course to become a big woman.” Mr. Kofo buttresses. The scene ends with the helpless daughter lamenting the landlordism and totalitarianism of her father.

Act two is set at Mrs. Ajibade’s residence which is artistically furnished and decorated with flowers. Holding a weekly newspaper, Babatunde is seated in a voluminous armchair dialoging with Ayomide, his younger sister, about the pitiable situation of our dear Nigeria. Ayomide sooner leaves for a supermarket after which Tolani enters. Babatunde and Tolani there and then play the game of chess and remember their high school experience after which Tolani, with a poem written by Babatunde to commemorate their togetherness, hastens out of the residence.

Towards the end of scene one, Babatunde receives a sudden call via his cellphone informing him that his mother (Mrs. Ajibade) is involved in a motor accident and that his attention is needed in the hospital. That communication ventures into the gloomy nature of scene two which takes place in a hospital. The doctor in charge of the hospital, after having given him pleasantries, stylishly calms Babatude down, followed by allowing him to see his sociable mother. “She has a slight bone fracture on her leg and we are taking care of that.” The doctor comments and leads Babatunde to the ward in which his mother is being admitted but yet that scene ends up in a tearful corner.

The third scene is set in a university environment where Babatunde and Tolani lament their failure in academics and thereby express their willingness to drop out of the university. They both blame their parents who have forced them to study undesired courses and express reasons why children greatly need to be listened to and regarded when it comes to choice of career.

Act three scene one is set in a garden at Mrs. Ajibade’s residence. Ayomide is seen dialoguing with her mother (Mrs. Ajibade) about natural inequalities among humans and, while they argumentatively discuss, Ayomide stylishly digresses by saying it is high time her mother allowed Babatunde (Ayomide’s older sibling) to study Yoruba language (the course of his dream). About that time Babatunde appears and echoes Ayomide’s voice in a similar tone as follows: “… Enough of this failure... It is high time I’m excused to study the course of my dream”. Intrusively, Mr. Kofo enters only to immediately leave with Mrs. Ajibade for a friend’s wedding ceremony. Tolani and Babatunde, in turn, dominate the stage to express their feelings for each other, and by that way, the scene becomes amorous.

Within the light of scene two of act three, a dramatic conversation does the play entail between Ayomide and her ex-schoolmate Iyabo, about the plight of their high school principal who gets sentenced for fourteen years for rape in lieu of unlawful cohabitation and the possibility of no appeal arising from the principal’s part owing to lack of resources. We get to know how the townspeople attributed the victim’s eventual death to a supposed later (secret) wicked use of charm against her by the principal before the two friends depart on a note of mutuality.

Owing to the amorosity of scene one, in scene three Tolani becomes precociously pregnant. This infuriates her father who fiercely asks for who impregnated her and he is ultimately surprised to know that the person is Babatunde (son to Mrs. Ajibade, their close friend). She (Tolani) is chastised, reprimanded and intimidated by her both biological parents (Mr. and Mrs. Kofo). “…You roamed about like a coquette…and nobody plants maize and harvest cassava”. Mr. Kofo harshly says in proverb and that differently leads to the unususal beginning of scene four.

Mrs. Ajibade, throughout scene four, soliloquises with sadness about the possible fate of her erring son who has by the relevant authority been charged to court for rape due to the impregnation of Tolani, the daughter of Mr. Kofo. She threatens to retaliate, should her son be jailed, against the litigious Kofo family.

In the scene five of the act three, Babatunde is jailed while Tolani drops dead after giving birth to Alailenikan in the labour room due to her past use of contraceptives to attempt abortion. “Young men of today have to be made to know that rape, promiscuity, lewdness and all forms of rascality are ever not a way of life. We must set precedents that will deter young adults from these sort of atrocities so as to create a society that our generation unborn will be proud of. We need to prepare our minds for a future time that is brimful of consciousness about God and frowns at all colours of immoralities that make our children miserable victims of early drug poisoning and cheap deaths by suicide.” The judge obiter says and that blinks a bright light into the evolvement of the didactic nature of the evergreen play.

CHARACTERS

Narrator: Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi

Meimunat (Tolani) – The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kofo.

Bade and Ibikunle – The sons of Mr. and Mrs. Kofo.

Mr. and Mrs. Kofo – The parents of Tolani, Bade and Ibikunle.

Babatunde – The only son of Mrs. Ajibade

Alailenikan (the child of nobody) - the child born by Babatunde and Tolani (Meimunat) out of wedlock

Ayomide – The only daughter of Mrs. Ajibade.

Mrs. Ajibade – School principal and mother of both Babatunde and Ayomide.

Iyabo – The only friend and an ex-school classmate of Ayomide.

A judge

A prosecution counsel

A defence counsel

The prison warders

A fair nurse

Doctor

PREAMBLE PROLOGUE

Tolani has just graduated from a high school. She is currently at home awaiting her entry examination into a university.

ACT ONE SCENE ONE

In MR. KOFO’S living room. As light gradually fades in, Mr. KOFO, TOLANI and MRS. KOFO instantaneously emerge; relaxedly seated in an armchair each, while holding a purely lengthy family discourse.

MR. KOFO: (like someone who is obviously possessed by evil spirits) I decree that you, Tolani, will study medicine. Under my command, your younger brother Bade must study law while Ibikunle, your youngest brother who ceaselessly had distinction in physics and other connected subjects will certainly study engineering whenever it comes to his turn. That will be my designation for my family as far as this noble generation is concerned.

TOLANI: (winces as a kind of courteous protest) Be that as it may, Dad, I would want to be a mathematician, a tremendous problem solver. I don’t like medicine and surgery as a course. Mathematics is my passion. The medicine-surgery talks do not interest me in the slightest measure. Besides, our chemistry teacher Mr. Agunbiade had sternly warned us against the big mistake of not making our passion our profession.

MR. KOFO: (rising disappointedly) Daughter, will you stop this meaningless charade?! I am giving an order, you are giving me a command. If at all the child is the father of the man it must not be in this order. I am your father now and medicine and surgery must be a reality.

TOLANI: (in a tone of suppliance and pleading) It is the elders that technically say a thing that belongs to me is different from a thing that belongs to us. It is a matter of my future, let me live it according to my precisions. After all, I am the one to reap the fruit after harvest.

MR. KOFO: (firmly) Listen! Our elders have likewise said while two children cut tree in the forest, it is the elders that would know the side upon which the tree would fall. As an elder, I know what the country is going to dictate tomorrow. That’s why I am exerting all adour to shape your future brightly. No going back on medicine and surgery. You must be a medical doctor.

TOLANI: (insistently) If I study mathematics, dad, I will be happy. I would be one of the most successful people to have ever lived. Happiness is wealth and can never be compared with the temporary pride that being a doctor would earn me.

MR. KOFO: Will you at once hold your peace?! When an old elephant trumpets its offspring does not do the same. (A pause.) I have commanded that you study medicine and you must not do the same by standing to command me that you must study mathematics. (Turns to MRS. KOFO who has been silent all the while.) Iya Tolani, Tolani’s mother, I have given you my commands, and that is the final say.

MRS. KOFO: (cuts in, worriedly) Tolani’s father let Meimunat study the course she wants. She can equally become an erudite mathematician like the late professor Obi Chike. Besides, she would be in charge of her own life. Again, she would be at the helm of affairs, and as she had added, she would live a happy life.

MR. KOFO: (fiercely) Do not come to that, woman! We are saving a chick from attack by a hawk but the chick complains that we do not allow her to go to the debris to feed. We are saving our daughter from the jaws of misery but she still complains that we do not allow her to yield her blunt yet flimsy whims and caprices. Your mates who are studying medicine now have no two heads. You will equally excel as a medical doctor. I cannot waste my resources on a phenomenon that yields no means. That notwithstanding, over and above everything, I cannot ‘carefully’ mislead you as a father. (Turns towards MRS. KOFO.) Who is the psychologist who informed you that doctors are not really happy people? Who? (MRS. KOFO sighs deeply.)

TOLANI: (in tears) But…

MR. KOFO: (cuts in) When is the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board releasing the next admission forms?

TOLANI: (still in tears) It ought to be released before the expiration of five weeks (coughs.)

MR KOFO: Weep not, for I am as prudent as the word prudence. I shall myself fill the form. Your case is hereby dismissed. You, without doubt, can and, must, be a medical doctor. ( MR. KOFO angrily storms out of the living room slamming the door behind him, while MRS.KOFO and TOANI still remain seated, deep in thought, until light suddenly fades out.)

ACT ONE SCENE TWO

In the same living room. TOLANI is seen seated with her two siblings, BADE and IBIKUNLE. In a flow of exuberance, the trio are loudly exchanging banters. At the moment, one yard apart is MR. KOFO seated at the dining hall. Gently, he is going through a daily newspaper.

BADE: You can neither influence nor control Dad Meimunat. (A pause.) If Dad was meant to be influenced or controlled, he would, of course, have come to this world with a remote.

TOLANI: (to BADE) Your jovial head is as big as hippopotamus’.

TOLANI, BADE AND IBIKUNLE: (laugh.)

IBIKUNLE: (chuckles mockingly) Sister that’s an abuse!

(At that moment a knock is heard on the door, IBIKUNLE goes to fling the door open, then enters BABATUNDE.)

BABATUNDE: (sounding tired) Good afternoon everyone. (To MR. KOFO) Sir, good afternoon.

MR. KOFO: Afternoon boy. Hope your mother, Mrs. Ajibade is faring well.

BABATUNDE: (in full spirit) She is. Yes sir. And she had sent me with an invitation card, inviting you to her forthcoming sendoff party.

MR. KOFO: Mrs. Ajibade deserves a great sendoff party. She has been a remarkable school principal all through. Is that not so? That is radiant. (Clears his throat, then takes a pause.) Do give the invitation card to that girl. (Points at Tolani.)

IBIKUNLE: (haphazardly, to Babatunde) You resemble Micheal Jackson. (BABATUNDE merely smiles without uttering a word).

BABATUNDE: (hands over the invitation card to Tolani then turns back, ready to leave). [To MR. KOFO] Bye bye sir.

MR. KOFO: No. Don’t leave us so soon. Do have fun and banter with (these) your ‘siblings’. Life is fun, catch fun!

BABATUNDE: (smiling surreptitiously) Thank you sir. (Sits beside Bade).

BADE: (frowns towards BABATUNDE with the corner of his eyes to steal a brief look) No! He resembles this popular African writer- Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi- especially with his sumptuous tallness, giant stature and beautiful complexion.

IBIKUNLE: (nodding delightfully) Yes! (A pause.) You have however forgot about his magical mind and highly compelling brain.

BADE: Yes, I love his works! You hit the bullet point!

BABATUNDE: What of Wole Soyinka, Chimamanda Adichie and Chinua Achebe’s. Are they not writers too?

BADE: All are great writers too. But Akolade remains our own favourite African writer.

BABATUNDE: (To TOLANI who has been silent all the while) My name is Babatunde Ajibade…

TOLANI: I am Meimunat Kofo, fondly called by my parents as Tolani.

BABATUNDE: You didn’t say anything to the ongoing conversation and, according to Martin Luther King, what we remember are not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

TOLANI: (in rebuttal tone) You have misused that quote from Martin Luther King Jnr. It doesn’t speak about silence per se, but about silence in the face of injustice.

BABATUNDE: (slightly shocked) Really?!

TOLANI: (nods affirmatively) Yes, really.

MR. KOFO: ( speaking to Babatunde from the dining hall) What are you planning to study in the university?

BABATUNDE: English language.

MR. KOFO: (louder) Why not choose law and become a lawyer?

BABATUNDE: It is Mama’s decision that I study English language.

MR. KOFO: That must be because your mother is equally a grammarian. Anyways, that is not bad. (A pause.) Have you commenced preparation for your entrance examination?

BABATUNDE: (slowly) No. Yes. I have.

MR. KOFO: Good. Do. Prepare harder. In our own days we always kept ourselves busy with reading of books. The future you see only belongs to those who are prepared for it today.

BABATUNDE: (smiling inspiringly) Yes. True. Thank you sir.

ACT ONE SCENE THREE

MR. KOFO is seated at the centre of the same living room while TOLANI rushes in to break a breaking news. Meanwhile, in preparation for an outing, MR. KOFO is holding a black briefcase and wearing a white agbada, a white bobble hat and a pair of white shoes. Seated at the left hand side of MR. KOFO equally is MRS. KOFO, almost quiet, and trendily dressed in all white.

TOLANI: The JAMB form is out, daddy. Ada, our light-skinned neighbour, just informed me.

MR. KOFO: Then go to operator emperor at the next street and let him register you. The course of choice must be medicine and surgery in any university of your choice. (A decisive pause.) The reason why I am willing that you study medicine is very simple. Sit down let me lecture you. (TOLANI sits down by MR. KOFO’s right hand side.) In the country today, you aim high. Les Brown has put the point subtly: ‘You shoot for the moon, and if you can’t reach it, you will still be among the stars.’ I believe you can touch the sky. Nothing, I resound, nothing, on our planet is impossible. Thus, you have to throw away your mathematical dreams into a lagoon. (Clears his throat.) Most erudite mathematician did not make it in Nigeria. They travelled abroad to build their career. If you can’t travel out of the shores of this country, then you have to study a big course to be a big person because, employment opportunities are dead in public sector, owing to nepotism, corruption and impunity. Did you know all that before now? An elder sees while sitting down what a child can never see while standing. (Coughing.)

MRS. KOFO: Ah! (Feigns a cough.)

TOLANI: Sorry.

MR. KOFO: Thank you. I have experienced life beyond the possibility of your sight. Thus, daughter go register now and have a mesmeric day. (Rises, in readiness to leave.)

TOLANI: But.

MR. KOFO: I know all you want to say. Don’t say but. Do as I say.

MRS. KOFO: (pathetically disturbed) You have no option than to accept what your father said, Tolani.

MR. KOFO: (while still speaking, walks towards the door with MRS. KOFO) We have an occasion to grace and time is far spent. We must attend Mrs. Ajibade’s sendoff. (Both exit slamming the door behind them.)

TOLANI: (in a soliloquy) This matter has gone beyond my control. The Oba river is full and unswimmable. Yet, the king’s errand is revered and unrefusable. The decision of my father is unchangeable and that course of study to me is undesirable. What do I do to safe myself? I am hooked up in this pathetic state having nothing to choose on my own. (A pause.) I suppose I could do something about this!

ACT TWO SCENE ONE

At the veranda, at MRS. AJIBADE’S residence. BABATUNDE who is holding a Yoruba weekly newspaper titled Alaroye is seen seated on an armchair close to his younger sister, AYOMIDE, who is in turn seated on another armchair. The veranda is luxuriously and artistically furnished and there are conspicuous flower decorations making it intensely sparkling.

AYOMIDE: Mama has got no time for us, as to educate and inspire us as a parent. She has been retreating from outing to outing.

BABATUNDE: (fanning himself with the newspaper) Let us discuss burning issues in Nigeria. Worry not. Mama is living her life. So, enjoy.

AYOMIDE: (uninterestedly) What burning issue?

BABATUNDE: (opens the newspaper with eagerness) A Nigerian governor just embezzled eighty two billion naira out of his state treasury. Can you pathetically imagine how grievous that is?

AYOMIDE: (disinterestedly) The point behind corruption by majority of Nigerian politicians is not my point. I just want to see Mama.

BABATUNDE: (with a greater volume) And he has been sentence to a fine of just five hundred million naira.

AYOMIDE: (now perplexed and interested) What a mockery of justice and an embodiment of judicial hypocrisy! Where is deterrence there?

BABATUNDE: (laughing with a tough guffaw) You imagine that mockery of justice. And graduates are on the streets seeking inaccessible employment opportunities. Citizens’ standard of living is miserably provoking and there still be at stake an ironically pitiable level of economic poverty.

AYOMIDE: And you know the worst thing? Should that crime be committed by a commoner, such a commoner could be boxed up to prison for life. I call that inequality, an original epitome of jungle justice.

BABATUNDE: I am so glad that you now as well deduce that the principles of rule of law are dead in our fatherland. It is so disastrous and clinical that we are no longer idolizing the rule of equality before the law. It is a fact only God safeguards and protects the interest of a child of nobody in our country Nigeria. And where is the supreme constitution? It is a living dead.

AYOMIDE: That same figurative attribute will best describe life and financial security in the country. Democracy has never worked for our country.

BABATUNDE: (categorically) We should blame equally those ambivalent voters to whom tokens were given who sold their quota of fortune and their grandchildren’s even.

AYOMIDE: (sneezes) Nigeria’s problems, we pray and hope, shall sooner come to an end.

BABATUNDE: So had we always hoped.

AYOMIDE: Let me go and change. I need to visit the supermarket to buy our foodstuff.

BABATUNDE: (sighing with approval) That is precisely necessary. (Rises AYOMIDE, strolls into her bedroom and changes, and then comes out in a native dress.)

AYOMIDE: Measure how I look in this dress.

BABATUNDE: (whispers) You are as perfect as a crescent moon.

AYOMIDE: (smiling and waving delightfully) Bye for now brother `Tunde.

BABATUNDE: (drops the newspaper to wave back) Bye my little Ayomide.

Away from the house AYOMIDE catwalks passing through the house gate. BABATUNDE goes into the living room, sits on a sofa, drags out a chessboard from under it, places it on a grey table and begins to stare at it.

BABATUNDE: (philosophically monologuing) When the human souls are bored the human system becomes suffused with unnecessary thought. (Just then, a knock is heard on the door and his monologue is interrupted. He walks up to open the door, and then TOLANI enters.

BABATUNDE: (excitedly smiling) You are welcome Meimunat, be seated.

TOLANI: (seductively) Thanks. (Goes to sit on that only sofa.)

BABATUNDE: (goes to the dining hall and comes back with a cup of water) This is water. (Puts the water on the table before her.)

TOLANI: (seductively) Thank you.

BABATUNDE: (in an enticing charming voice) Do you play chess as a game?

TOLANI: (nods desperately and enticingly) Yes, I frequently do.

BABATUNDE: (sits down beside her and begin to arrange the chess piece) It would be desirable to know how you were able to make it down here.

TOLANI: (stares at BABATUNDE and touches him amorously in the way that women do when trying to initiate a dirty atmosphere) Daddy had always allowed us to go wherever we wanted. The world is now civilized and no parents can any longer put their children under lock and key. Daddy was today though not at home. So on my own volition had I appeared here today. (A pause.) To prevent my sibling from knowing my hereabout I had to sneak out. Otherwise, the two boys wouldn’t have allowed me…

BABATUNDE: Coincidentally, Mama is not at home.

TOLANI: (happily) Oh.

BABATUNDE: The principal herself, that you also know, is arduously gregarious. Since after her sendoff, she had been partying. She is to have a party in Lagos today, and she is there already. (Plays the game.)

TOLANI: (flabbergasted) You won!

BABATUNDE: (beaming) Enough of this game. (Gathers the chessboard and the chesspiece under the table on the rug and then claps his hands in the way that people do when trying to begin a new conversation.) What about your admission status? Have you surfed the internet to check it?

TOLANI: (runs her finger over her hair) Certainly yes. That would be the best charming sarcastic news I would ever break to your beautifully bewitching aroused ears. I think in the prestigious university of Ilorin had I just got admitted to study medicine. Papa’s wish had come through. I thought I could do something about that. But, alas, there was nothing I could do.

BABATUNDE: (grinning coyly) Nevertheless, congratulations will I still say. It’s never your legitimate wish though. Equally have I been admitted in the same tertiary institution to study English language.

TOLANI: (titillated) woah, that’s good!

BABATUNDE: (indifferently) Your trouble is my trouble; it’s Mama’s wish that I study English language as against my proper ambition to study Yoruba. In her own words I must study a course that is quite elegant, official and civilized.

TOLANI: I pray our parents listen to the voices of their children.

BABATUNDE: (languidly) Amen. (A light pause.) We never had the opportunity to converse like this when we were in high school.

TOLANI: That could be because we were in different departments, though the same school. That was why we never had the opportunity, I believe, to speak together for once.

BABATUNDE: I hope our cordial relationship would glow up till the university level.

TOLANI: (passionately beams) And broadly far beyond. (Rubs her left hand over her head in the way that calls for attention. There is a long silence on the stage, then she checks her wristwatch.) Now I have to be on my way before Papa would think of arriving home.

BABATUNDE: Of course, let me pen down a radiant poem to nobly commemorate our obscene togetherness.

TOLANI: Alright (sings seductively)

You are my love

On you I have a crush

My heartbeat you are,

Like the movement of a horse.

BABATUNDE: (chuckles and pick out a flashy cellphone from his waist pocket, drops it on the table, picks up a jotter and a pen from on top of the table and then begins to compose a poem. There is in the sitting room a long silence this time. To the hearing of TOLANI, slowly, then louder, he recites the (ballad) poem.)

The precious ventricle of my heart

You I’II miss as my eyes

Very soon we 'll depart

Like a century it shall seem

Lacking your voice and smile

And the beauteous dreams of you

The gorgeous flag I ever sway

On a route along the Milky Way

Oh dizzy jewel! Me lull to bed

Have me for the sensual dreams at night

In the breeze of merriment shivering

And bantering in a tumultuous tone

Like the sanity bloom of relish

So I may slumber in your sumptuous arms

As the meritorious moon in the precious sky

Tolani, my love, rotate the skimpy pearl -

In that your subtle soul,

Heart and mind, that I may die to win!

TOLANI: That’s specially articulate and arousingly mesmerizing. (He gestures romantically while TOLANI springs up flirtatiously to her glowy feet, takes the doting ballad away from him then sashays tentatively towards the cosy fussy door.) `Tunde, bye. (Exits.)

BABATUNDE: (remains seated, smiling. Then two minutes after, his cellphone rings. He picks it up to answer the call nervously) Yes, this is Babatunde the son of Mrs. Ajibade. (A pause.) What? Accident? Mama? (Briskly jumps up, then runs towards the door.) How, who, when, where? (Exits the room.)

ACT TWO SCENE TWO

At Omolola hospital. BABATUNDE is seen entering the doctor’s consulting room.

BABATUNDE: Good evening doctor. The receptionist directed me to you. (Sighs.)

DOCTOR: Evening, young man. Be seated. (Draws out hot tea from a jug into a glass cup.) Furnish me with the green card now.

BABATUNDE: (hands over a card nervously to the doctor) Have it (the card) sir.

DOCTOR: (checks the card) Mr. Ajibade, your mother is responding to treatment. Psychologically, be calm. On her leg she has sustained just a slight bone fracture but we are taking care of that. For health reasons, she has been placed on drip.

BABATUNDE: We duly appreciate your industry.

DOCTOR: In our subsequent discovery, to sum it up, we had realized via medical facts that she is equally asthmatic. We have, on the scale of certainty, adopted all precautionary measures to put her asthma in probable abeyance.

BABATUNDE: Appreciations sir. The deafening call that lured me down here gave me palpitations. Anyways, you have just made my mood consoled (a heavy sound of a crying downpour is heard across the roof.) Can I along the line see her?

DOCTOR: (Draws back his swivel chair and stands up) Go up with me.

BABATUNDE: (stands up) Yes sir. (Both walk out and go up directly into a ward, climbing a staircase.)

DOCTOR: (enters gently) Your son is here Mrs. Ajibade.

BABATUNDE: (hurries towards her) Sorry Mama. Now how do your legs feel Mama.

MRS. Ajibade: Better.

DOCTOR: (walks towards the exit door) Attach not to the ward for too long that you don’t enable her rest (exits).

BABATUNDE: I am going to stay only for a while.

MRS. AJIBADE: (resting on a bed relaxedly with her shin completely patched with a white bandage) You take care of your sibling while I remain here. We give glory to God who did not make today a completely ignominious day. (A pause.) If I do not survive this asthma you take care of yourselves.

BABATUNDE: (sobbing) Mama, you will… You will survive. The doctor claimed he had given you the necessary treatment, and that has the potential of making you survive.

MRS. AJIBADE: Now is my last hope.

BABATUNDE: (still sobbing) How did you encounter the accident?

MRS. AJIBADE: It was a taxi driver who tried to overtake me that collided with my Camry car. That is the shortest story of how I found myself in this hospital.

BABATUNDE: What about the taxi driver?

MRS. AJIBADE: He zoomed off. It was merciful passers-by who brought me to this hospital.

BABATUNDE: (wipes off his tears) May it be well with the passers-by.

NURSE: (enters) [to BABATUNDE] It is time to leave. Madam you may rest. If there is any improvement in your health condition we may grant you a discharge…

(Emotionally, while waving at MRS. AJIBADE who is equally waving back, BABATUNDE advances like a bereaved villager with anguish towards the hospital door until he tragically disappears from sight.)

ACT TWO SCENE THREE

Three years into BABATUNDE and TOLANI’S university education it is. This scene is set in the prestigious university of Ilorin. Under a big baobab tree are the duo of BABATUNDE and TOLANI seated on a deeply yellowish dirty bench with their faces covered with anguish.

TOLANI: It is a gloomy day, Babatunde. I’ve been advised to withdraw from the university after three regrettable years of academic woefulness. Babatunde, lamentably, I am to leave the honourable university in a long garment of shame.

BABATUNDE: Ah, that’s really lamentable.

TOLANI: After flagellating my legitimate dream to be a mathematician, these tears are the tragic future Papa handed down to me.

BABATUNDE: Out of financial desperation for the so called courses of admiration our parents have done us a high deal of harm. I share in your agony. Out of the seven courses designated for this extant semester I have carried over six still in addition to the ones I am carrying over from the current year. Nothing stopped me from withdrawing from school to study my dream course but my mother.

TOLANI: Our parents owe us some listening ears when we talk of career choice. They equally owe us some apology for overtaking our dreams to satisfy their wishful choices. Even though parents are superior to their children, we will posit that children ought to be listened to when discourse comes to their future dreams and aspirations.

BABATUNDE: Anyways, we have failed in school but not in life.

TOLANI: But do not forget me `Tunde. Never forget about the fact that I love you.

BABATUNDE: I won’t.

ACT THREE SCENE ONE

In a garden full of blooming roses, on a Saturday, inside MRS. AJIBADE’S residential premises. Under a large yew tree, deep in conversation is MRS. AJIBADE with AYOMIDE, who is holding a sauce pan, seated on a single chair with the former baffled by her right.

MRS. AJIBADE: If not that hands are not equal, I would have ordered for a better present for Mr. Kofo than that sauce pan. (A pause.) That aside, I would have flown abroad for further medical checkups like our government officials are frequently doing.

AYOMIDE: (piqued) That is because they have failed to furnish the healthcare centres in the country with the requisite health facilities. (A pause.) Moreover, it is not merely hands that are not equal. Heads too are not the same.

MRS. AJIBADE: What on earth do you mean by that?

AYOMIDE: A toddler for instance cannot speak fluently while you, being an adult, can. To put it more philosophically, what as a matter of fact do you think of two people taught in the same class by the same teacher but did not assimilate things the same way?

MRS. AJIBADE: Of course, the answer to that logic is focus. The truth remains that all heads are equally made up of the same brain but people never focus concepts widely the same way.

AYOMIDE: Do you think that could be because their passions are focusing different directions?

MRS. AJIBADE: Yes.

AYOMIDE: Their heads, hence, and equally intelligence quotients are ever not the same.

MRS. AJIBADE: I think you are trying to say brains are not the same.

AYOMIDE: You are concretely correct!

MRS. AJIBADE: That is, well, subject to arguments.

AAYOMIDE: Mama, no past, present or future argument can upturn this broadly proven philosophy. It is in that direction high time you categorically allowed brother Tunde to withdraw from the course of your preference and go for the course of his dream.

[JUST THEN, BABATUNDE APPEARS BY A WAY OF COINCIDENCE PUTTING ON A NATIVE ATTIRE AND HOLDING A YORUBA NEWS PAPER.]

Ayomide: (hailing BABATUNDE) Hmn. Tunde my brother. The language of Yoruba wizard.

BABATUNDE: (stepping into the garden.) Yes. We are all particularly better at something. A lion cannot swim but it is a king of the jungle. A whale can neither walk nor run but it is a champion of the sea. A python can neither run nor swim but it gloriously can crawl. We all have our distinctive uniqueness. (Clears his throat.) I repeat that we all have our distinctive weaknesses and strengths. Enough of this failure. I say I cannot continue to wallow in lugubriousness making a mockery of my strength. It is high time I stayed in charge of my destiny. It is high time I was excused to passionately study the course of my dream.

AYOMIDE: Oh, it is my brother who have just spoken!

[A knock is interruptingly heard on the gate. BABATUNDE sprightly moves to open the gate and MR. KOFO enters.]

BABATUNDE AND AYOMIDE: Good afternoon and welcome sir.

MR. KOFO: Afternoon son and daughter. (To MRS. AJIBADE.) My precious popular principal.

MRS. AJIBADE: (rising) A most erudite proficient lawyer of our time.

AYOMIDE: A wind of sleepinesss has blown into me. (Goes into her bedroom) [Exits].

MRS. AJIBADE: (To BABATUNDE) We are going for the wedding ceremony of one of our academic staff who is equally a senior lawyer. The appalling unemployment pandemic in the country made him take up a teaching job. Time is far spent, bye.

MRS. Ajibade and Mr. Kofo exit through the gate. In less than no time, Tolani moves in through the unclosed gate, and joins BABATUNDE in the garden.

BABATUNDE: Meimunah, your papa just left here.

TOLANI: I’m too much aware of that.

BABATUNDE: Like a dream your coming seems. Do I need to ask of what you have brought to me? No. As physically all you have brought to me is joy like these bunch of blooming roses. (Gesticulates pointing at the roses).

TOLANI: Behold my whole that looks as still as a garden of blooming flora. What best pleasure would I not feel if placed on your stubby fingers? My heart is filled with the charming breeze, Babatunde you are the reason for my ‘homecoming’. (Touches him).

BABATUNDE: (holds her hands) I am blissfully only the sole witness to your ‘homecoming’. My heart is filled too with lovely pleasure that makes my eyes so cold as if to burst in tears.

TOLANI: (smiles) Love, in the wording of Shakespare, cannot be found where it does not exist nor can it be hidden where it truly does.

BABATUNDE: (smiling back) Give me the warmth preserved for the unforeseen period by far that I may die to want.

`TUNDE AND TOLANI hugs. A knock is heard on the gate amidst that time. Light fades out.

ACT THREE SCENE TWO

In the evening, thirty days later, AYOMIDE and her ex-classmate, IYABO meet outside a supermarket after long time of high school departure.

IYABO: Ayomide, this is your face? Where have you been? Long time, no see! How do you do?

AYOMIDE: I have been in the prestigious university of Lagos studying Pharmacy. How do you do? (Both friends hug).

IYABO: How is family?

AYOMIDE: Like I hope yours is, my family is good.

IYABO: Brightly cool. I learnt our high school principal has been jailed for rape.

AYOMIDE: (Sadly) Lamentably, that principal is a randy leader. A leader should not be randy in the making. He was sentenced, regrettably, one hundred days ago to fourteen years imprisonment.

IYABO: Ah, that is absurd! That punishment is much of an aggravated deterrence. I learnt that the crime wasn’t rape, it was unlawful cohabitation.

AYOMIDE: Yes. So I heard too. But the judge reasoned that our society needed to be curbed of both rape and unlawful cohabitation, and quite emphatically that the principal had been found guilty of the offence (of rape) charged.

IYABO: (shakes her head with melancholy) The did has already been done. One last thing that we anticipate of is that the decision may get upturned on appeal. (A pause). One of the breaking news going round in town is the quote about the principal’s lawyer by people that he told the journalists that the conviction of the principal was on the adulterated evidence of the student and the fabricated report of a medical doctor, showing that the bright days of justice have not yet emerged to our judicial system. And that he would appeal against the decision “until justice flows down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

AYOMIDE: No! His lawyer never said such. And besides, due to the absence of money on the principal’s part, I don’t think there would be any significant appeal against the decision. That is another aspect of the rumour we have also been hearing. I am coming from town where I heard from townspeople that the principal charmed the student to make her drop dead.

IYABO: Life will always demand from you what you can’t give, especially your name. Such is life. Do not give up. Do not be discouraged. Raise your head up and deal with it. It is high time I left friend (turns to leave).

AYOMIDE: Before we depart, I cannot thank you enough for your wordings of wisdom, Iyabo. Also, I cannot forget to learn from the true life story of the principal as a potential leader, that we should not condone amorous, promiscuous, immoral, flirtatious and lousy lifestyles within the society.

ACT THREE SCENE THREE

At MR. KOFO’s residence. TOLANI is four months pregnant. MR. KOFO is angry with her about her state of precocious pregnancy. MRS. KOFO later rushes in, and all become fiercely seated in their living room for a tough confab.

Mr. Kofo: Who impregnated you? I say who impregnated you? Have you no mouth or I use this stool to stab you?! I say who impregnated you? (Picks up a stool).

MRS. KOFO: (rushes in and takes away the stool from MR. KOFO) Tolani’s father, tolerate not the devil as anger may lead to a grievous mistake.

MR. KOFO: Then woman, ask your daughter who owns her pregnancy.

MR. AND MRS. KOFO: (coincidentally) Tolani, who impregnated you?

TOLANI: T- Tunde!

MR. AND MRS. KOFO: (at once, again) which of the Tundes?

TOLANI: Ajibade_

MR. KOFO: That boy?! Ah, that gentle boy?! No. Tell me the truth; it can’t be Tunde.

Tolani: (with tears) `Tis T-u-n-d-e A-j-i-b-a-d-e!

MRS. KOFO: (lamentably) Despite my all efforts to instill morals in you Tolani, you eventually ruined me.

MR. KOFO: Were you raped? I know you have been raped. Yes you were.

TOLANI: (Hesitant) No! Yes. No!

MR. KOFO: (carries the stool again) What on earth did you garbage just said?

TOLANI: No!

MR. KOFO: (makes a menacing move towards her) W-what!

TOLANI: (in a shock) Yes.

MR. KOFO: I’ve been told since you failed in the university by our neighbour about your promiscuous lifestyle. That always you roam about like a coquette. But hardly did I believe my ears. Now that you’ve climbed the tree beyond the leaves, you are to be reminded that nobody plants rice and harvests cassava.

MRS. KOFO: Did I not warn you about mingling with boys? And did I not sound it to your deaf ears to distance yourself from anything that can malign your chastity as a girl? (Shakes her head disappointedly as she turns back and leaves for her room).

MR. KOFO: (Sighs and looks up at the ceiling) O’ my God! (Looks at Tolani tragically and disgustingly). We can only have all we need, not all we want, for we all have what we don’t have. Despite my full effort to make you a success I met not that kind of brain in you. To worsen all of the trauma you went ahead and got a precocious pregnancy. (An intermittent silence). God knows that boy shall never go scot free. Whoever tries a river with two feet deeped would see what has never been seen before. I must put a razor on the things that joined us together. I must show him that nobody plays with the tiger’s tail and goes scot free. (Drops the stool he is holding and rushes out of the living room banging the door behind him).

ACT THREE SCENE FOUR

At MRS. AJIBADE’s residence. She is sighted lying down on a sofa, monologuing in her living room.

MRS. AJIBADE: Mr. Kofo arresting my son on false allegation of rape is the last thing I would ever live to witness in life. Is this how friendship ends? This puts me in poor confusion. And that girl, should my son go to jail for the offence the duo committed, would never go scot-free. As life on my path is getting out of interest, who primarily is to blame? Had I known, I wouldn't have prevented Tunde from studying his dream course. Perhaps his becoming a failure wouldn't have happened. The oncoming disgrace wouldn't have befall him, nor would he have lead an idle life that makes the devil's workshop. Like my family name is journeying under the soil, what illusion has the world turned to be? (Enters Ayomide interruptedly).

AYOMIDE: I could overhear your loud self-talk. What were you saying, Mama.

MRS. AJIBADE: Are you in a deafening ignorance of your brother’s remand in state custody? Do I need to tutor you that once a hen is tied to a rope, neither the hen nor the rope be at ease? Never you hence bastardize my frustration.

AYOMIDE: sorry Mama.

MRS. AJIBADE: Distance far away and never you lead the life of the duo.

AYOMIDE: Alright ma. (Retreats back to her bedroom).

MRS. AJIBADE: Anarchy is loosed upon my world. Now the centre does not hold for my family and kofo’s, and we have fallen apart. The precocious pregnancy is going to lead to a court case framed from false allegation against my child, a child of nobody. Tomorrow is trial. And so I do insist, I will punish Tolani of Kofo family without the law.

ACT THREE SCENE FIVE

In a courtroom. People are seated watching from the gallery. On the door adjacent to the courtroom, three bangs are heard and a judge is ushered in by his strict guard. Everybody in the courtroom rises.

COURT CLERK: C-O-U-R-T!

JUDGE: (Eminently seated) Do call up today’s business on the cause list.

COURT REGISTRAR: The case of State versus Babatunde. (Absolute silence sets off in the courtroom as every person quietly sits while Tunde is ushered into the court’s accused box by some prison warders). [Facing Tunde after explaining the charge to him]. What do you make as plea to the charge read and explained to you? The court wishes to know whether you are pleading guilty or not guilty.

BABATUNDE: I am not guilty.

JUDGE: (while writing) prosecution, you can establish your case.

PROSECUTION: (standing, tough and vibrant) My Lord, on the 1st day of January 2020, the accused, Babatunde committed the offence of rape of Meimunat, (Miss Tolani) who now has given up the ghost in the labour room after giving birth to Alailenikan - the child of nobody - due to her past multiple use of contraceptives to attempt abortion. My sacred submission is based on the evidence of the deceased’s statement made to her father a few hours before her demise and the evidence of the medical doctor who examined the damsel that day. We hereby tender both the medical report and the evidence of the statement the deceased made to her father in evidence and we urge your lordship to uphold the fortress of justice so as to make the accused serve as deterrence to the members of the public by getting him judicially and judiciously punished according to our statutory laws.

ACCUSED’S COUNSEL: (rising) Babatunde is innocent of the offence charged, or of any offence at all. My lord, his university, oblivious of such fact already had rusticated him from their prestigious institution. And to punish him the second round for that same offence which he had not commit would result to double jeopardy. Alluded to that glaring fact, my lord, the said statement of the deceased made to her father was made to her father under duress- she was forced to make the statement. The statement is thus unreliable…

PROSECUTION: (springs up to his feet, like someone who is suddenly possessed) objection my Lord!

JUDGE: (writing) Overruled!

ACCUSED’S COUNSEL: I hereby urge your lordship to discharge and acquit my client of the offence charged because, to convict him for an offence he had not commit would result to injustice.

JUDGE: (to Babatunde) What do you desire to say to the court before my final Judgement gets delivered?

BABATUNDE: I not only urge this court to let justice be done but to equally let justice be seen to have been done. The court should allow me to take care of Alailenikan, my only child - the child of nobody.

JUDGE: Young men of today have to be made to know that rape, promiscuity, lewdness and all forms of rascality are ever not a way of life. We must set a precedent that will deter young adults from those sorts of atrocities so as to create a society that our future generation would be proud of. We need to prepare our minds for a graceful time that is brimful of consciousness about God and frowns at all colours of anomalies that make our children miserable victims of early drug poisoning and cheap deaths by suicide. The university’s decision, I hold, was right and that derogates not from the court’s decision in any adverse pattern.

PROSECUTION AND ACCUSED’S COUNSEL: As the court pleases.

JUDGE: Sole evidence of the statement of the deceased made to her father and the evidence of the medical doctor corroborating it are both reliable and hereby admitted in evidence because the statement of the deceased was a dying declaration made to her father which now has been supported by another relevant evidence of a medical doctor, hence its relevancy and in turn irresistibly admissible.

PROSECUTION AND ACCUSED’S COUNSEL: As the court pleases.

JUDGE: This case is proved beyond all reasonable doubts. The court warns the public that indecent assault, rape, lewdness and all calibers of indecencies are against the will of God and therefore punishable. One of the commandments of God in the holy books is that one should never attempt rape and so one should not commit rape: therefore, Babatunde is sentenced to life imprisonment.

BABATUNDE: (crying) Ah! I committed fornication but got sentenced for rape. Had I known I wouldn’t have done it, for I am a child of nobody. I wouldn't have condoned her seductive moves? I wouldn’t have walked into regrettable fornication. Why me having to live incarcerated for the rest of my life? (As he is whisked out of the court premises to the back of a minivan by prison warders he begins to scream sadly) O’ God, forgive me of my sins!

EPILOGUE

(BY BABATUNDE, INSIDE THE PRISON YARD)

For that lady, I left in jail

Charming beast! Arrayed in frills

Foisted me in doting wail

Her love lured me to prison-tale

I’m scared of ladies on earth

For that puppet I walk on tongs

The fastest death to Silent trap

Like a critic in whitish garment

In pangs of pain she flung my hope

I’m scared of ladies on earth

Below my iris be running tears

Cracking my lips apart

Denial be her solid ploy

Maketh my future a futile past

I’m scared of ladies on earth

Reviving the doom of the past

Amidst my dreams yet cometh she

Oh, caress me! She sweetly sang

Throwing my world in woeful loss

I’m scared of ladies on earth

Must I blame my heedless mind

That gave my whole the lustful taint

Out of my soul as a heedless youth

Had come the scars of prison life

I’m scared of ladies on earth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi is a poet, essayist, playwright, novelist, lawyer and activist, whose works generally criticize the vagaries of the brooding vices in our modern world. Born in Erin-Ile, in the Oyun Local Government Area of Kwara State-Nigeria, he had toured the different regions of the country which had given him the foresight for the normalization of the growing ills of the universe. He had published Letter to Tyranny (A selection of Poems), Destiny out of Diligence (A Novel) and The Child of Nobody is his third published book. His belief looms upon the bitter reality that what is worth living for is worth dying for. He has by his way set down a moving gear towards the creation of a better world that applauds, adores and cherishes the rights of humanity in order to accomplish an atmosphere that frowns at all styles of anomie, tyranny, chaos and indecencies within the orbit of our tumultuous modern world.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A didactic play that frowns at adolescent love affair and promiscuous lifestyles, set in Nigeria, the Child of Nobody recounts the life of two young characters who pretend to fall in love with each other: Meimunat, the eldest daughter of a litigious lawyer and Babatunde, the only son of a gregarious school principal. Their relationship however collapses into a double jeopardy, when both characters dance beyond the stage and become fornicators. Then the two families become fiercely combative. With The Child of Nobody, Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi expresses himself as a most talented playwright.

More than just a play, the book condemns major acts of indecency, anomie and mischief queuing up on the sides of stakeholders and government, both parents and children.

Impressum

Texte: Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi
Bildmaterialien: JAMIU AKOLADE ADEYEMI
Cover: Jamiu Akolade Adeyemi
Lektorat: A. A. Waliyullah
Korrektorat: A. A. Waliyullah
Übersetzung: Nil
Satz: 33 pages
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.04.2023

Widmung:
To my affectionate mother, princess Adeyemi Monsurat Morenike, without whom in the true sense, I would have been nothing.

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