If i had not seen it myself, i would have dismissed it as a typical Nollywood script. But i was there. I saw it all. Like a tragicomedy, it all started well enough.

               "Today represents a vindication of the strand of scholarship I represent ", Professor Labanba intoned through smiling teeth as he was conferred with the Distinguished Lagosian Award, for presiding over what has been adjudged the best medical college in Nigeria. For those familiar with the details, it was considered an honour well deserved. As for me, i know that whoever can run a stable academic calendar for eight years running consistently, graduate first class medical doctors, certainly deserves to be praised to high heavens. It is said that even last year, his college turned out fifty medical doctors, with thirty-nine of them being in the first class grade. Indeed, it takes the best to bring out the best in others.

               So, you can understand the accolades that kept coming in. local and state governments throughout the federation outdid themselves commenting the sagacity, wizardry and unflinching commitment of the esteemed professor to humanity. For once, the English language was not up to the talk, as the professor's well-wishers ran out of superlative adjectives to extol the prof's virtues.

                   And it was an honour well deserved. So, in keeping with time honoured custom in this clime, after the formal investiture ceremony at the     Muson Centre, the professor including his retinue of family, friends and well-wishers relocated to the venue of the talk of the town grand reception.

                It was at this stage that things began to go awry. Just at the last intersection to the venue of the grand reception, a dare devil BRT driver ran into the prof’s convoy. The thunderous ghoa! Heralding the crash was followed by a pin drop silence as we realised that the BRT bus had crushed what used to be prof’s bullet-proof jeep. Milliseconds later, we all regained our vocal organs as wailings; in different tongues rent the air. Amidst the bedlam a few of us with some presence of wound, made our way gingerly to the wreckage.

              To no one’s surprise, prof’s driver had been crushed to death beyond recognition. Prof’s P.A. seated beside the driver was not much better off as a casual glance at him shows that he was beyond human redemption. To our shock and relief, we found Professor Labanba unscathed safe for a gash to his forehead, and a deep laceration to his left thigh. Carefully, we extricated him from the wreckage. Immediately, we got a choice vehicle in the convoy to take the slightly delirious Prof to the General Hospital, fortunately or unfortunately close by. On getting there, the customary indifferent lethargy of the hospital staff quickly gave way to a manic desire to please, once they realized whom their patient was. With German efficiency, Prof was wheeled into the emergency ward, placed on oxygen and surgically scrubbed. While all these activities were going on around him at frenetic rate, Prof was an island of serenity as he lay back with slightly bemused look on his face.

            Soon a solicitous hospital staff came around to inform us that the Chief Medical Doctor of the hospital insisted on personally looking after Prof. hence, the slight delay. With the assurance that the Chief Medical Doctor will make his entrance any seconds, we waited with bated breath even as attendants kept fixing things.

             It was during this lull that a smart alec said: ‘’indeed, God works in mysterious ways. Can you believe that the chief medical doctor of this hospital is one of professor’s students at the medical college.  In fact, he graduated with a first class. Oh, Prof can’t be in better hands at this moment’’, he enthused as we broke into smiles of relief, sharing his confidence that Prof will be well looked after. Apparently Prof. Labanba did not share our confidence and enthusiasm. Carefully and wordlessly, Prof detached the oxygen mask, unhooked the tubes passing drips into his veins, like a bolt of lightning, dashed out of the emergency ward. Aghast at this turn of event, we were transfixed to the same spot, Prof Labanba put every second, we wasted rooted to the same spot, to good use as he put as much distance between himself and the General hospital, breaking several world records in the process. By the time we came to our senses, Prof was nowhere to be found. Being neither his relative nor friend, i soon headed home convinced that Prof’s marathon brunt was a case of cerebral malaria gone viral.

            I was soon to realize how wrong I was on my assumption on the Prof’s sanity. It was while reading an interview by one Mr Akilapa, who was dismissed from the college by Prof some years back. Like every disgruntled element, he went on about how the Prof was nothing but a smart quack, a threat to public health, etc. then all of a sudden, it made sense. He stated that the only sane thing Prof Labanba ever did since he knew him was taking to his heels at the General Hospital. He explained ‘’there was no way Prof Labanba would submit himself to the medical examination of any of his former students because more than any other person, he knows his so called first class medical graduates lack the most elementary medical skill to treat a rat, talk less of a human being’’. With a smack on his face he signed off on a sarcastic note by stating that ‘’today marks a vindication of the strand of scholarship which I represent, which believes that there is more to university education than turning out university graduates with clock wise regularity’’

           With a burst of energy that would have shamed a cheetah, I got on the phone to my daughter and blurted: ‘’baby, before you submit that JAMB form cancel out your first choice of university and replace it with any other university be it Zamfara university, I don’t care. Just change that damn university as your first choice.’’