SISTER ADURAGBEMI
PART 10
By Ojo Rhoda Ayanfeoluwa
The day for the competition arrived in a twinkling of an eye.
How time flies!
A night to the D-day, Adura hardly fed her eyes with sleep. She kept on checking the wall clock for the umpteenth time.
She wasn’t too tensed. She just wanted the day to come and vanish away. She strongly believed that she was going to be the winner of the competition. No negative thoughts! She saw the victory even before the game/competition began.
4am that morning, sleep finally swept her away. She couldn’t resist the tide of the sleep that came upon her.
That morning, her parents woke her up for morning prayers.
Sade was still enjoying her sleep when a hand tapped her from her dreamland. She was busy dreaming about her stay in the United States of America.
She woke up immediately the tap persisted.
The family did their usual family devotion and they didn’t fail to commit the competition into God’s hand.
After the devotion, Adura’s mum walked into the kitchen to fix breakfast while the father was busy taking care of the children.
At 7am, Adura was set for the competition.
Adura wore her neat and well arranged uniform to the competition with her socks sparkling as white as a snow. She didn’t forget to wear her usual beautiful smile that could cause people to look away from her condition.
Her dad hugged her and re-assured her of the success ahead.
Her mum gave her the sweetest peck that almost made her not to remove her hands from the spot where her mum pecked her, for minutes.
The love was fantastic.
Her sister hugged her.
****
The time for the competition began.
Every where was filled to the brim with people. Her parents were seated in the hall where she was, watching their brilliant daughter.
The quiz master began to call competitors one after the other to occupy their various seats at the front. As they were being called, people showered them with claps.
As soon as they called “Adura Akinpelu” everyone clapped, expecting a young and vibrant girl walking towards her seat at the very front, but their assumptions were wrong.
The moment they saw her on wheelchair, people began to murmur. They were surprised to see a lame girl being one of the competitors.
Well, Adura wasn’t moved. She kept on beaming with smile, giving room for the self-pity, negative words said about her, to disappear. She believed she wasn’t a girl who was supposed to be pitied. No room for unnecessary self-pity.
Many people kept silent,watching and eager to see the outcome of the young girl on a wheelchair.
***
Adura answered all questions brilliantly. At the end of the competition, she was declared winner.
The moment she was declared the winner, jubilation started at its peak. Her headmistress, teachers from her school, students who followed them to the competition and everyone from her school all jumped up for joy when Dominion nursery and primary school came first.
Her parents rushed down to where she was to congratulate her.
Everyone began to shout “congratulations, brilliant lame girl of Dominion nursery and primary school.”
At first, she wasn’t pleased with the word “lame” added to her title, but she discarded that, focusing on the victory won.
When they gave her the microphone to at least say a word about the competition.
She said she was glad to be part of the competition as it was a rare privilege for someone like her. Winning the competition was a dream come through for her, at least competing with people who had legs was a great indicator that she was a girl with abilities not disabilities.
To cut the long story short, she was given full scholarship for her secondary school education.
Her sister didn’t like the idea that she was the only one being celebrated. She frowned her face throughout the competition.
Common “congratulations” didn’t fall from her mouth.
Immediately they returned home, the parents went down on their knees, praising God for the success. They didn’t fail to thank God for having mercy on them especially when they were about to take stu.pid steps as regards their daughter’s case not knowing that Adura was a complete package of joy, happiness, favour sent from God to the family.
“Sade, won’t you congratulate your sister for performing well at the competition.” Mr. Akinpelu asked.
Sade expressed her mind to her father. She counted herself as an unfortunate being, because her sister was making it.
Her father scolded her sternly and encouraged her to be contended with what she had.
” Adura has brain but has no legs to walk. You have legs to move freely from one place to another and God blessed you with a brain your laziness has ruined. Only if you can be hard working and shun laziness….” Her father said.
She finally hugged her sister for the success of the program and learnt to be happy when others are happy, sad when others are sad.
****
Adura and her sister went to the same secondary school except from the fact that Sade`s parents were to pay her own school unlike Adura who was placed on scholarship.
When Adura got to junior secondary school, she kept on being the best of the best in her class.
It continued to her senior secondary school.
She sat for WAEC, and cleared all her papers once. Unfortunately, her sister wasn’t too brilliant although she also cleared her papers, but not with too good grades as compared to Adura’s
They both sat for JAMB and were earnestly expecting to be admitted.
The two of them were really eager to know what campus life entailed.
Finally, they were admitted.
Instead of Adura to be happy, she was sad.
She was weighed down by her thoughts.
To be continued.
ยฉ๏ธOjo Rhoda Ayanfeoluwa.
