“Abok1!”

“Sah!”

The thin, wiry young man soon showed up, panting and out of breath, like he had just run the London marathon. The distance between his post at the gate and my car was hardly exhaustion-worthy.

“I’m about going to work. Someone
from a delivery company is supposed to come drop something off for me. I want you to collect it, sign and keep it for me till I get back, okay?”

“Yes, sah!”, Abok1 replied, nodding vigorously, like an agama Lizard on steroids. I looked at him doubtfully. This wouldn’t be the first time I had given him instructions. It could, however, very likely be another in a long line of instructions I had given only to return to find out something else entirely had been carried out. Unlike his “brother” Bello (as at last count, he had at least thirty other “brothers), who always took time to ask questions if he didn’t understand instructions, Abok1 was all energy. It seemed his life motto was action first, questions later. And the results ranged from hilarious to cringe-worthy.

Once, I had come to his shop beside the building entrance to buy a tin of custard. After looking around his shop and determining he didn’t have any, I asked if he could go buy from further down the street. The words had barely left my lips before Abok1 grabbed the money and dashed down the street at lightning speed and I thought – now that’s a man dedicated to his job. Imagine my surprise when he returned less than a minute later with a plastic bag filled to the brim with 250 Naira worth of coaster biscuits.

“Abok1, na who tell you say make you go buy coaster?” I asked, part appalled, part astounded.

“You, oga.” Abok1 replied, breathless. I ended going to buy the custard myself.

Or once when I was home on leave and found myself afflicted with a nasty stomach ache, I dragged myself to his shop to buy Andrew’s Liver salts, a popular antacid.

“Abok1, you get Andrew’s Liver salts?”

Abok1 looked around the shop with the concentration of a JAMB candidate.

“Walahi, I no get Oga.” He pronounced, eventually.

An entire roll of the thing was hanging beside a strip of Peak milk sachets, right beside his head.

“Abok1, no be the Andrew’s be that?” I responded, thoughts of my predicament having fled me for the moment.

“Dis wan?” He pointed at a pack of Cowbell Chocolate.

“No, there.” I pointed straight at the antacids. Abok1, paused, then followed my finger’s direction.

“Dis wan?” It was GO-90, a local insecticide he pointed at next. I sighed. Was he subtly telling me to go and die?

“That one!”

Abok1 looked at me like I was going crazy. I stepped into the shop and slapped the roll of Andrew’s.

“This one, Abok1, this one! Hah!”

“Ohhhhhh, I no know say im be dat.”

I groaned.

“No worry.” I said, walking away. “Stomach no dey pain me again.”

https://greysweaterdude./2016/04/19/aboki/

Nairaland won't kill me. The title of my story is abok1 (substitute the "1" with "i". Which one is northerner again? Since when did aboki become a bad word bikonu?

Edit: So I had to go through the entire post and replace abok-i with abok1. The story now feels different.

Someone is paranoid much. In a little while, English won't even be recognizable because everything is offensive. We would now say 'excuse my English' instead of 'my french' and everybody can fucking go back to babel.


Ps. My phone auto correct f**king to funding. Let's see what nairaland comes up with

Tomeseen:
Someone is paranoid much. In a little while, English won't even be recognizable because everything is offensive. We would now say 'excuse my English' instead of 'my french' and everybody can fucking go back to babel.


Ps. My phone auto correct f**king to funding. Let's see what nairaland comes up with

Funny, "fucking" is apparently par for course on this forum but Abok1 is offensive!