The Send-Off Party [2]

MC: Hip, hip …1

AUDIENCE: Hooray!2

MC: Do I need to add more?3

AUDIENCE: [A MEDLEY OF] Yes …No!4

MC: Our dear principal said it all.5

AUDIENCE: Yes o!6

MC: We’ve got the pepper-soup. Now, we need the fresh bubbly palmwine to savour it.7

SFX: A BOYS-ONLY GROUP DRUMMING, SINGING AND BLOWING HORNS TAKE THE PODIUM. THE MUSIC RECEDES TO THE BACKGROUND AS 1ST AND 2ND STUDENTS CONVERSE.8

1ST STUDENT: Why don’t girls blow the horns?9

2ND STUDENT: [LAUGHS.] Because they have good enough voices to sing.10

1ST STUDENT: Lame excuse. Girls just seem poor with blowing stuff.11

2ND STUDENT: Male voices croak, majority I mean, so boys resort to blowing all sorts of things.12

SFX: MUSIC RESURFACES, REACHES A CRESCENDO; THEN STOPS. CHEERS AND APPLAUSE. GROUP DEPARTS THE PODIUM.13

MC: I don’t know if anyone has realized this with me – the sweeter any party gets, the swifter too times flies. So without further ado I would call on our departing girls’ senior prefect, Miss Ima Ekong, to read us her speech which is crafted in the form of a short story and I’m cocksure we all would enjoy it. Please, a round of applause as we welcome the young lady who so successfully pilots the affairs of the young women of this institution for the past one year or so.14

SFX: A RESOUNDING ROUND OF APPLAUSE.15

IMA EKONG: Thank you. My short story is entitled: ‘A FLOWER ABOUT TO BLOOM’. The theme of the story is about child trafficking, especially the girl child: it traces the cause [maybe one of many] and subtly points out that enlightening parents or guardians at the grass roots could help in curtailing the menace. The story proper:16

‘With the rains setting in, long-distance farming became a gamble. Mma had a not-too-cheering outcome today.17

‘The sun dimmed, trees reeled and the wind whooshed through leaves. Across the sky sturdier birds glided leisurely. The women called one another, carried their loads and hurried along the tracks to the village.18

‘Sad though Mma was, a thrill ran through her body as she met a Jeep parked at the front of their mud-walled, iron-roofed house. Bold lettering on the flanks of the vehicle announced who the visitor was but Mma, who could neither read nor write, made no sense of it. All she thought was the Jeep could be godsend.19

‘Patim, her husband, was hesitant about educating their teenage daughter. He’d said educating girls was sheer waste as they would end up as other men’s possessions or come home with unwanted pregnancies. He reserved his finances for his four sons. Though Mma had great dreams for her only daughter, poverty worked against her. But she’d kept praying for the benevolent woman, who had been coming to pick children to train in the city, to find her way to her doorstep soon. The women she knew who had farmed out their daughters were always telling her of how well the children were doing, flaunting too gifts they sent them. But all Mma would ask for was her daughter be given a little more education.20

‘Patim beckoned pensively to Mma. She joined him and the elegant visitor adorning the wooden bench like a sweet-smelling flower. Mma draped on it like a scorched leaf.21

‘”Recently,” the visitor conversed in their dialect, showing them photos in several publications, “a refrigerated truck moved across several states with the men at the front telling police they had frozen fish at the back. Then in Lagos a curious policeman insisted on inspecting the cooler. Guess what? Frozen fish became dozens of young helpless children stacked in there!”22

‘Shock ran down spines. “Whose children?” Patim asked.23

‘”Children from parents ignorant of the grim realities victims of trafficking face. Experience has shown these children would end up slaving away their young lives in hostile homes, factories and brothels.”24

‘”Unthinkable!” Patim exclaimed. “Are you saying children taken from this village to cities are in similar situations?”25

‘”Of course, yes!” the visitor replied. “Who would best train a child – the parents or strangers?”26

‘Patim shook his head disbelievingly. “But we hear of gifts the parents receive.”27

‘”If business is lucrative, can’t I buy you gifts in the name of your child? When last did the child visit home?” There was silence. The visitor resumed: “For this reason our organization tries getting across to parents to let them know a child would worth more at home than abroad and more so the girl child. Give them good education and they would excel in their chosen fields. My father was wise sending me to school. With his sons far away and busy with their lives today; I’m the roof, bread and medication sustaining him.”28

‘Patim nodded contemplatively, turning to look at his daughter – a flower about to bloom if given favourable conditions. “But how do we stop her becoming pregnant before she becomes an important woman too?”29

‘”It’s the self-worth you give her,” the visitor replied. ‘Teach her right and she’d live right.”30

‘The rain tapped the roof.31

‘”In every child, boy or girl, are great potentials locked within and there’s just one key to unlock these,” the woman said as she walked towards the Jeep.32

‘”What’s the key?” Patim asked, escorting with an umbrella.33

‘”Education!” she answered smilingly, climbed into the driver’s seat, waved goodbye and closed the door.34

‘Patim stood waving until the Jeep, reversing, reached the path and crawled away – sound and sight lost to the din and grains of the sudden downpour.’35

Thank you.36

SFX: A RESOUNDING OVATION.37

MC: I just wish all the parents were here, especially those parents who place emphasis on one sex over the other. Without wasting much time, I would call on our school’s budding thespians, Latecomer and Truant, to comically approve or disprove the gist in the ex-senior-prefect’s story. Please, a round of applause for our budding stars.38

TRUANT: Thank you all and good morning or is it good afternoon? Let me look at my watch first.39

LATECOMER: You call this watch? [LATECOMER LAUGHS.] Sorry o! Where did you get a clock and put on your wrist? Methinks you should have hung it on your neck – such a befitting place!40

SFX: LAUGHTER RUNS THROUGH THE AUDIENCE.41

TRUANT: You see I’m getting dim in the eyes and needed something big enough so I can read easily.42

LATECOMER: No wonder.43

TRUANT: Once again, good afternoon. Latecomer and I came here today so we could ask one question that keeps bugging our minds: why is it that we are always urged to replicate important personalities abroad but not the societies and institutions that produce them?44

LATECOMER: Our people say lies are best covered with big words. So let me break it down. Why is it that since Obama won the November 2008 US presidential election we are all asked to copy him, in fact be like him?45

TRUANT: You see I come to school some days and bunk off other days to do odd jobs …46

LATECOMER: While I come to school late because I have to give mum help in the shop close to midnight …47

TRUANT: … so we can raise the needed cash and settle our ways through school rather than read. The Obama I listened to on the radio and watched on TV didn’t act like one who paid to have his grades through a special exam centre or else he would’ve cracked when he confronted a formidable opponent like McCain.48

LATECOMER: I know as the case with all the specimens grouped as the masculine gender you would think of men only as being formidable. Before McCain, Obama met a formidable opponent in Hilary Rodham Clinton! Because he didn’t attend a rundown school with tens of riotous kids in a classroom [though our school is excepted] …49

SFX: THE AUDIENCE TITTER.50

LATECOMER: [CONTINUES:] … paying at the end to have his grades at the hands of ill-trained, hungry teachers and invigilators; he made it in grand style to the White House.51

TRUANT: Give us good schools, well-paid and dedicated teachers and a society steeped in the norms of true democracy …52

LATECOMER: [INTERRUPTING:] That reminds me, if that election was conducted here Truant and I would’ve been at each other’s throats and today would still be recounting our ordeal and losses.53

TRUANT:[RESUMES:] … give us all that I’d mentioned and I can tell you in two decades or thereabout, I would be an Obama making Latecomer my Secretary of State.54

LATECOMER: Sorry Truant, the tables must turn this time around. I would be an Obama making you my Secretary of State. Thank you.55

TRUANT: Then let’s wait and see who the next Obama will be two decades or thereabout from now. Just give us all we ask for. Good day.56

SFX: A ROUSING OVATION.57

MC: Please, a round of applause for our future president and Secretary of State.58

SFX: CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.59

MC: On that note of politics I usher in the very capable ex-boys-senior-prefect, Etebong Ubong, to read us his political love song entitled: ‘TONGUE IN CHEEK’.60

ETEBONG UBONG: It was a couple of years back that I wrote this piece prompted by our Literature teacher who asked us to define what irony is and also write a piece to illustrate this. My definition was: ‘Irony is the cream with which a people under despotic roof openly rub their minds.’ Then we still had our civilian president with military mentality in charge!61

SFX: A ROUSING ROUND OF APPLAUSE.62

ETEBONG UBONG: The politics today is politics of re-branding the country and that makes this piece relevant. I read this to you as a pointer on how we should go about it – this I call fundamental re-branding! [ETEBONG UBONG CLEARS HIS THROAT:]63

‘PROLOGUE: 64

Our huge oil exports65

Are placing undue weight 66

On our nation’s coffers –67

Come join relieve this oppression.68

Let’s move into politricks69

And elevate our dear nation.70

‘AGENDA:71

Let’s tar our roads with potholes72

And bless our people with waterless taps.73

Let’s equip our schools74

With strikes, crowded cells75

And hunger-made-mad teachers;76

Let’s upgrade our hospitals77

To mere morgues78

And send the doctors on foreign errands.79

Let’s garland our entire work-force80

With arrears of salaries81

And rain our markets 82

With substandard and highly priced goods.83

‘EPILOGUE:84

Come! Let’s ennoble our dear nation85

With our excesses –86

Let’s defraud, let’s pillage and kill87

For these are the grand benefits of demote-crazy!’88

Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow students, here I end. Thank you and good bye.89

SFX: CHEERS AND OVATION.90

MC: [LAUGHS.] Brilliant piece I must say. As I now call on the Right Honourable, an able representative of our people in the corridors of power, to present the gifts to our deserving graduates I must with humility first seek his opinion on the poem. Please, a round of applause for our guest of honour.91

SFX: ROUND OF APPLAUSE.92

COUNCILLOR: Thank you so much, our very able MC, I must say the piece is thought-provoking and I always had and still have one dream – to be a good politician and not a ‘politrickster’; to practice a democracy that certainly promotes, not demotes.93

MC: And that in fact is in line with the new spirit of re-branding. Please, a standing ovation for all our able representatives.94

SFX: CHEERS AND A RESOUNDING OVATION. P-SQUARE’S TRACK, ‘WHY E BE SAY’, PLAYS.95

THE END.96