Sometime ago, I used to be a housemaster. By the way, that was the job I enjoyed most.
I simply love the youth!
While there, more often than not, I had to counsel some boy who had been given a nickname that the more he showed a dislike for the nickname,, the more it would stick because other boys would get to know it.
Over the years, in my young age, I’ve also been a beneficiary of several nicknames.
It started from ‘Adeboy’ – maybe that was coined from ‘The Mine Boy’ by Peter Abraham.
Then, ‘Ade Panco’, ‘omo Show, and ‘Ade Show’.
I forgot, ‘Olori Nla’ – an obvious reference to my rather big head, which I think was the same size as it is now when I was a tiny tot.
There was a character in my secondary school who was so burly that he was nicknamed ‘Sir Kato’. He was some years my senior. When I went into the hostel, my mates immediately transferred the appellation to me.
When I was a manager in a shipping company. One guy, because he knows I’m from Owu, Abeokuta, gave me ‘Olowu’.
When I took the job of housemaster, like I mentioned earlier, the boys gave me a nickname. Due to the fact that I would often disagree with what they had planned to do, they nicknamed me, ‘Mr No’.
We often assembled somewhere in Abeokuta. We did to ease our nerves, read the dailies and magazines, debated and argued. We even formed a club. There, I was nicknamed, ‘Liberian’ by someone who is now a Local Government Chairman. The nickname stuck so much that some felt I was from that country.
Now, on this blue street, I – a veteran of so many nicknames – have been baptised with another nickname by Lawal Adetayo W in connivance with another whose picture looks like a decayed tooth – ‘Bitumen’
Who doesn’t know that the. ‘W’ in Lawal’s name means were?
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