BETWEEN POPOOLA AND HIS FATHER

I leave in a "face-me-I-face-you" house where everything goes. You could wake up looking for your slippers you left at your doorstep or your pant you forgot to take inside last night. Pieces of meat and fish missing in pots of soup still on fire was a daily single story; you would understand why my younger brother was always assigned to keep watch whenever we were cooking. But aside the insecurity, nothing could be heart aching than the deafening sound of condemned and smoke pumping small generators some neighbours would stubbornly struggle to kick on at that time sleep seems to have penetrated your skull. More so, the interesting fight between mama Okoro and her husband, and the abusive nagging mama Idowu wakes her children with early in the morning confront a decent mind with the option of stealing in order to rent a self-contained apartment and pack out the next hour.
Just this morning, Mama Popoola was on it again. I had barely ended my morning devotion when her voice started paying homage to the still gently resurrecting early morning of 6. The harshness and thunder in her voice would make even the lunatic maintain decorum. I hope God would understand why my prayers were discontinued. By the time I went out, the whole neighbours had already assembled. Popoola was in the pool of blood. Last term it was his elder sister and today, the first day of the second term, when other children were preparing to resume school, the poor boy would fall victim of his father's callousness and transferred aggression. To help out, we, the concerned neighbours needed to calm his mother and get the real gist especially to aid the trade of certified gossipers in the house.
Well, Popoola, a 15year old, SS2 student of Government Secondary School, Idiapo, woke up with his siblings this morning feeling excited and very eager to resume school. He had helped his two younger brothers with bathing as his elder sister bathed the other three. Aside unveiling him as the class captain today for his outstanding performance in school in the previous term, Popoola was to receive his class materials so he needed to resume early. In the heat of this exuberance, he approached his father to remind him, of course, very politely as his nature was, of the books he promised to purchase for him and his siblings. The rest was the story that created the scene we saw. His father made him his morning punching bag; at least he saved his father the stress and money of going to the gym. Popoola's mother who was in the kitchen watching over the fish-less soup and "eba" she was preparing at the time, couldn't hesitate to save her son. Popoola was already lying almost lifeless on the rough floor at her intervention and, you could now understand why her voice thundered.
The best we could do as neighbours was obvious. We rushed him to the hospital and the old hopeless father of his who was just good in producing children was assisted to offset the bills.
This is just one example of the unimaginable, numerous little things that deny children good education in Nigeria.
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