Stories
One Coin, Two Sides
It was the sort of argument you could not win without telling people the cold, hard truth
Nobody wants to hear the truth
Everybody would rather play the victim
They were all in a WhatsApp group
A gathering of old classmates of an Alma Mater
Somebody somewhere felt it was a good idea to create an old students’ association group
He got an invite and he joined
When he got into the group he saw many of his old classmates
They had nothing to discuss
They had graduated for over ten years and had all gone on to make names and a life for themselves where they could
Some were abroad, some were in Nigeria
It was a gathering of the past
It was not a necessary gathering in his opinion
There was nothing to benefit from joining
A guy was still writing about an ex-girlfriend who had gotten married with children as if they were still dating
Another lady in the group made it her job to persistently remind the guy of this whenever he wrote anything and mentioned the lady’s name as if they were still dating
Another guy was into snail farming and all he did was advertise his snail (raw, cooked, dried, roasted, and fried) on the group
A lady called herself an HR Specialist and would post Zoom links to seminars from her office or whatever on the group intermittently
He kept wondering what he was doing in the group
He was no longer the person they went to school with
He was not the same guy they once shared classrooms, cafeterias, and hostels with
He was a different person
The group was a headache
He wouldn’t dare be himself in the group
He exited the group, and one of his classmates reached out and begged him to rejoin it
The classmate said, “It will be interpreted as pride”
He felt anybody could think whatever they wanted
It is only right that people have their opinions
Opinions are like noses, everybody has one and it usually has two holes in it
Nobody’s opinion is a dead-on truth
One day they began a discussion on the WhatsApp group
They chose a topic he felt he could contribute to
They were talking about one of their old lecturers
To him, the lecturer was a good, sound, and intelligent man
The best lecturer they all had in the department as at when they were in school
He was so sure of this
The man was truly brilliant and he lectured using a fantastic style
The moment he wrote his opinion of the lecturer
The group went quiet
Then, one lady responded by saying, “That lecturer was despicable, he tried to sleep with me while we were in school”
Another guy said, “The lecturer was a bastard, he collected a lot of money from me while we were in school”
Others, about six of them also spoke
They echoed the sentiment that the lecturer was evil, immoral, the devil’s best friend, the devil’s boyfriend, etcetera
He read their replies and began to laugh
The guys seemed to have forgotten that they were all in school at the same time
These guys were the most unserious students in the class when they were in school
One of them was his roommate
He would not be in school for nine weeks out of a semester
He only came in to register for his courses, pay his fees, disappear for months and then reappear a few days before the exam
He spent the days he was on campus, bribing lecturers to allow him to write make-up tests, begging his classmates to borrow him their notes, or stealing their notes when they were not looking
After writing the examination, he would begin to lobby the lecturers not to give him an F
He didn’t mind an E or a D but he didn’t want to have to retake any paper
The ladies were cut from the same fiber- lazy, laid back, unserious, truant, undisciplined and lax
They lived by their own rules and the lecturer marked them according to what they truly earned
Then they would go to the lecturer to cry and beg
Then the lecturer would offer them terms outside of the set rules of engagement (This is wrong of the lecturer to do)
The terms could be, “Sleep with me” or “Send me money”
They would do it just to get away with their crazy choices
And then lament about it years later as if they were chatting with people who had no memory of what went down
The problem was, that telling them the truth that way in the group would be unkind and unnecessary
It would make him look arrogant and self-righteous
Being a Christian and all, he decided to leave the group
No serious-minded student in the class could complain about being harassed or made any demand on by the lecturer
It was those who wanted to cut corners that had the guts to rewrite facts just to smear the lecturer and make themselves look like victims
It was what it was
The mindset was not right and being in the group while unable to say things as they are was quite uncomfortable for him.
He exited the group
Two of their classmates called him to ask why he left the second time
He told them he was too busy to cope
Another classmate called him and said, “Can you imagine what those guys were saying about Dr. So and So, have they forgotten that we were all in the same school and we knew that without the lecturer’s help, some of them would never have graduated?
He had to remind the caller that two wrongs could no right make
The lecturer ought to have allowed all the unserious students to dance to the tune of their own music in peace
He would later learn that it was the bending of rules that cost the lecturer his marriage and his career in academics
One of the ladies who came to him crying that she could not afford to fail a course, offered to do anything to pass
He took her tears as desperation
He didn’t know he was being set up
He asked for sex in return for marks
The lady agreed
They met in a hotel and he got himself recorded
With the evidence against him, he had no defence
He was sacked and his wife left him that same day
The lecturer got what he deserved
This does not mean everybody’s opinion of the lecturer will be the same
We should judge people by what we know about them and not what we were told about them (If we want to be fair)
To him and the other serious students, the lecturer was good at his job
To the unserious students, the lecturer was mean and evil
It was the same coin with its two sides
PS: The lecturer was wrong to give those who deserved to fail an alternative to success apart from the laid down rules
He would have been called mean and inflexible but it would have helped his career and his reputation a lot to be steadfast
By bending the rules for some, his reputation came under scrutiny by the very people he bent the rules for
We must all remember this
There are two sides to every coin
You cannot open the door to the devil by making certain decisions and then crying foul when affliction comes
If you avoid a naked wire, you will most likely avoid being electrocuted
I have seen ladies who complain of being harassed at work
One got employed as a journalist but she could neither write a news story nor conduct an interview
Six months after her employment, the company rated her as the worst employee and were going to sack her
She was summoned to the MD’s office and she gave a sob story
Then she offered a compromise
She was given the sack but she became the MD’s mistress a few days later
I have seen guys too who turned to snitches at the office because they could not deliver on the task they were employed for and had to adopt new tactics to please the boss so as not to get the sack
We all should walk in such a manner that we would not expose ourselves to such realities due to our missteps
If the hedge is not broken, the serpent can’t bite.
-GSW-