“Aah! Je kin ya fun!” Professor Ola exclaimed as he swerved to the side of the road onto the green grass by the university staff quarters. He had seen a vehicle behind him trying to overtake. Still in a state of shock, I, sitting on the passenger’s seat, looked back to see the vehicle he was referring to. It was a grey Land Rover jeep moving at a high speed, the noise it made, increasing as it passed beside us, onto the stretch of the road and disappearing in a corner covered by green trees.
“That’s how he drives”, the Professor said as he brought the Volvo to a halt. “This is not the first time I’ve seen him do this”, he continued, his hands pointing at the jeep with his now fiery eyes, looking toward me, by the passenger’s seat and then, towards the jeep in front. We were coming from the orthopedic clinic. I had been sent there to see him two weeks ago by my project supervisor, Dr. Jubril. I was working on an electronic device that would help monitor the walking pattern of people with disabilities and people without any; their gait. I had not been able to make an appointment with him till a week ago, when he scheduled a meeting between me and two patients with osteoarthritis; a pain in the knee joints, today.
I had met him, early in the morning at his office at the department of medical rehabilitation, Obafemi Awolowo University. He maintained two offices, one for academic work and the other at the clinic for practical work. A short dark skinned man, with a pair of oval shaped eye glasses, dressed in suit. I remember I made a comment on his suit as he walked towards me at the front of the departmental building, away from his light brown Volvo saloon car onto the corridor leading to his office. “Oh! Thank you”, he said. “I got it from France in 1998”. “Really! And it still looks this good?” I replied in amazement. I would later find out that Professor Ola, the head of the department had trained and worked in different countries before now. His expertise was shown during my experiment at the orthopedic clinic, one of the clinics at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, about five kilometers from the university campus. It had different sets of clinics, each for a unique purpose; the dental, maternity, surgical and the likes. I had tried putting the device I created on a woman, about fifty-six years old, who had osteoarthritis. I had to put a belt which held the device round her waist, making sure it was just below her navel, the centre of mass, we called it. I was shy as I did this. The woman raised her arm while I stood in front of her, one end of the belt on one hand and the other end on the other; I swung my arms around her waist till my hands met, then staggering, holding both ends of the belt with one hand, I moved to her back to make a firm clip. I noticed the belt was not positioned correctly but I couldn’t imagine having to adjust it. “It would be like caressing her on her waist”, I thought. As I moved further to take the readings, Professor Ola walked in. “As soon as I put on the device, you would have to walk in this path” I said in Yoruba to the woman, pointing to a rounded-rectangular path I marked with a chalk on the ground, behind a set of cushion chairs placed in the cream-coloured room. Professor Ola stood for a while by the door, and then leaned on the wall, watching. “Is that the correct position,” he asked. “yes sah”, I murmured in response. “Are you sure that is the centre of mass?” he asked again as he walked close to the woman, moving to her back to make adjustments on the belt. “Don’t be afraid!” He said, holding the woman by the waist. “Is this not the centre of mass?” he said, standing behind the woman, his chest, stomach and groin almost touching her backside with his hands pressing into the pelvic bones at her sides. “Yes sir”, I said, astonished, looking at his hands on the waist of the woman and then, her face as she gave a tender smile. “You are allowed to do that here?” I wondered as I continued working. I had noticed the clinic was different from the regular one I went to when I had fever, the moment I walked in through the wide door, the floor elevated in a mild angle to allow someone in a wheel chair move across. I had also seen a group of waiting people sited on three sets of long chairs arranged, one in front of the other. Some of them had bandages on their hands, supported by a cloth that went up, around their neck. “They must have had an accident” I thought as I tailed behind the professor. I had also seen people dressed in white coats attending to people. One was standing beside a woman who staggered as she walked on a white, long piece of paper. “A stroke patient”, the professor had said as we walked by.
Professor Ola chose to take me back to the university campus. It was while on this trip that we had this encounter. “I must tell him this time, I know where he’s going”, he said as he moved the car onto the road again. “He’s the vice principal of the University’s secondary school, someone needs to tell him”. He went on to tell me of three accidents that had happened within three weeks on this route. He had seen one on a weekend as he drove, a car, turned upside down by the side of the road. Another he heard of, while at home. The daughter of his friend had gone to drop her friends after her birthday party at the University gate and was rushing to get back home. She didn’t get home. The parents had received a call some minutes after it happened and a similar story of a man in a hurry to get somewhere, colliding with a vehicle on the other lane for cars coming on the opposite end, at a corner.
We saw the Land Rover jeep turn into the street leading to the secondary school and he confirmed his earlier statement. “You see, he’s the one! I told you.” The professor drove into the same street and then by the building of the school towards the land rover jeep. The vice principal had come down and had started walking towards the school building when Professor Ola parked his car and beckoned on him, raising his hand as he got out of the Volvo. I stayed in the car as I saw him go over to the man, talking to him for about two minutes. Then, I saw the vice principal, younger than the professor, prostrate before Professor Ola, his lips moving in a way I could tell what he said. “I am sorry Sir”, I picked out. Professor Ola walked back to the car and told me he wasn’t angry with the man, but that it was about his life. “If you are late to get somewhere, be late. It’s better to be late than to be ‘late’” he said. I didn’t understand the words immediately he said it but it made sense, some seconds later. It is better to be late than to lose your life trying to get somewhere. “From a professional who works with people with disabilities, helping them recuperate, I’ll take that” I said to myself.
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