EMMAWAD

THE ORANGE SELLER I had never seen an aboki so fair selling oranges. You could tell that his shelter for a long time had been under the sun. But the fairness was still obvious. He stood there under the bridge with his wheel barrow filled with unpeeled oranges, waiting for descending customers. I was attracted by the yellow oranges and so I walked up to him to sell me four for a hundred naira. And this was how I noticed many things about this man and in turn, learnt something from him. He had mastered the art of orange peeling after so many cuts on his fingers. He peeled them like they were his tender little babies; one in less than a minute. This was not one of those abokis you’ve seen selling fruits. When he asked me how many I wanted, his pidgin did not give him away to any tribe. He sounded like a man of no tribe and had the looks of a middle aged maybe from Chad. He still had his low dark hair with baby curls even though signs of baldness were becoming obvious. He had o...

  THE CIVIL SERVICE: A DREAM JOB OR NOT? The Civil service is not my dream job. It is not the kind of place I see myself working because if you look at it I see it as a place with a lot of redundancy; people just sit down doing nothing. It has never been my dream job but “dem say condition dey make crayfish bend.” I am not unemployed but it seems like I am... Generally there are civil servants who are doing well in their place of work. They tend to be very busy especially those working in federal agencies, like the FIRS, the Central Bank, NDIC, NIMISA and so on. They operate more like a private sector so there’s serious competition in those places so you have to be at your best; your A game. But in the mainstream of the civil service; both the federal and state, there is redundancy. People just go to the office, sit without doing anything and at the end of the month they take home peanuts. This is why you see many civil servants leaving their offices to do other menial ...

OWO NI KOKO (MONEY IS THE MAIN THING) One of my young customers walked into my small shop some time ago to collect his sewn wears and mistakenly stepped on another customer waiting to be measured by me. At first I just stood there watching the show: “Do you know who I am? I’m sure you never saw the four walls of a university that is why you cannot even say sorry after stepping on me with those cheap shoes of yours” “For your information I am a graduate, a lawyer for that matter, with a second class upper if your grandmother does not know of it. Maybe you are the one who needs to go back to school to learn some manners for you lack one obviously.” I did not know who the more frustrated customer was. Were manners now acquired from going to the university? These two men could not even pay the initial fee I charged them and there they were insulting one another; a show of educational power. And as we say today “who education epp?” I was not ready to even settle them both;...

Human Resources: Part 2 Mololuwa eventually returned to the mini office the following day, to fulfill all righteousness and convince herself that she had all the self-control in the world to do the right thing; who knows, luck might just shine one her. The reception room was very busy with people this time, unlike the previous day when she felt important enough to get the job, being the only one that had showed up for the interview. Now she understood why she was told to return the next day. There were youths and even grandpas present there now, all eager to get hired. They had on desperate expressions, especially the men. Mololuwa could not breathe freely anymore for the air had been choked with nervousness, desperation, anxiety and every other punitive feeling one could think of. The security guard was quite friendly this time as he smiled at her and told her not to worry about the day’s register but to go straight into the office space with the other pack of wolves who...

Human Resources (One) S he woke up earlier that morning, ready to take on an interview that would probably click this time. She had applied for an HR job with a genuine firm, after she had googled the name:  Prime Platform resources. Three days earlier she had got the email to come for an interview due to the satisfied credentials they had received in the application process. She thought about looking good but simple; she did not want to be debased like the last interview she had with a pension firm where her interviewer bashed her for putting on a three quartered pant trouser to an interview looking like a flippant candidate. She never concluded if that was why she didn’t get the job. This time was going to be different. She would make sure no one held her in low esteem just because of her appearance. She was going to look like her 24 year old self. The night before the star day, she brought out her best corporate white shirt that she had never worn after she was given...

It was going to be a rainy day in June. Chioma's interview had been slated for 9am as stated in the text message she had received the previous day. She had applied for the position of a Customer Service Officer online, in a Reputable Globally Known Company. With raised hopes, official killer outfit, rehearsed poise, and the Lord's Prayer keeping her almost calm throughout the bumpy drive, Chioma headed for the interview. After following the directions given to her, she still couldn't locate the company; she refused to, even though it stared her in the face like an angry mob. It was a kiosk-like room opposite the street's waste centre. After much consideration, she decided to go in. She was there already and had nothing else to lose but time. "Good morning. May I ask if this is T&G Solutions?" She was dead deep inside now when the scrawny looking receptionist answered "yes" to her question, and was led into a dingy space demarcated from the r...