If you ever secondary-schooled in Nigeria, then the gravel taste of pankere, koboko, bulala, belt and at unfortunate times wire served by our chalk-gladiators cannot be forgotten. “…spare the rod and spoil the child…” we often heard them say before the meals were served! At such black moments in the staff room we gasped for mercy that seldom came especially at times when a large faculty of teachers were seated in the staffroom awash in beer-parlor gossip…the book of life was opened for the unruly students, the innocent was not left out either!

As “Mr. X” begins to straighten his “head-correcting” tool the class rolls into pandemonium as the antelopes takes cover behind the gallant lions who have erstwhile won themselves the medal of “eating” cane without shaking, begging, crying or even moving.
We celebrated such bravery until we saw a few class-knights who assumed mastery in pankere eating, explode in tears when wire came visiting, their millipede had met uncle’s salt...they’d started valiant, absorbing the strokes with posh semblance, sometimes with their hands buried in their pockets, touting their lips arrogantly until their face and ego fell apart. Tears now pouring out without warning, his palm recklessly surfing his back, yet he refuses to beg Oga-teacher considering the prying eyes of the ubiquitous JSS1 students and the unruly tongue of the JSS3 girls, until Uncle's stroke finds it way to the senior's back just below his neck…The walls of Jericho would fall.

The then cosy and beautiful hens always clutch around the cane "dusting" Cocks with a host of junior students flocking around them as school-sons and daughters whilst the cry-cry seniors walked almost alone. When we the junior students clustered we argued about who gets the crown, we where always Wowed by such feats…

We were eventually blown away the day we saw a then SS2 guy, his name; Festus, absorb about 27 strokes from one of our Oga-na-master teachers without moving an inch off the stretcher he was strapped to, on the assembling ground. Silence prevailed on that cold morning, a little sob would crash his big-boyism reputation, canes where shredded to splinters, then changed. Slaps and spankings were featured yet senior Festus didn’t move….after the meal was over, he jumped off the four-footed wooden beast and bounced away. My joy as a JSS2 student knew no bounds…We clapped and cheered in our hearts, for the king had been found.

Unfortunately i was never such a brave cane-dusting senior. "Please Sir i will not do it again" wasn't far from my lips...I wish i was.

those years in boarding school can't be forgotten

Memory floods,
Being retrospective,
Laughs at such naivety,
The cries plummeting like an unrestrained downpour of rain,
Grazing the lofty cheeks in the process,
Due to the impact pankere had on the buttocks.
All the body parts cried at each reoccurrence,
Wondering if jazz would be able to submerge such pains,
At the flick sight of hope,
Just a single pankere,
And all the jinx become neutralised.



Laughs.

.