by Aniefiok Udoabasi

Have you noticed it already?

Most times,when God wants to give your life a promotion and uplifting, He brings you someone to be kind to. When you need help, life brings you someone to help. If you pass the test of kindness, you are promoted. But if you fail, you remain where you are.

I remember when I was in my 3rd year in the University. I had used my school fees for something so pressing, hoping to replace it before exams. As exams approached, I could not replace it. I was distraught.

To worsen matters, that was the year that the University introduced the “no fees, no exams” rule. The dean went round all the classes promising that anyone who has not paid will take the exams. He said that even if the person is his child he/she will not write. He was following the orders of the University senate,he said.

By examination day, I had still not paid. I remember waking up that morning refusing to fear. I put a call to a classmate I knew had not paid and he told me he wont bother to show up.

Not showing up for the exams was not an option for me. As I dressed up about to leave for the exams, I remember lying on the floor and whispering a prayer. The scripture “call on me in the day of trouble,and I will answer you” came to mind. I simply said “Lord ,today is that day of trouble, please answer me”.

As I reached the school gate, I saw some year four students (who had their exams in the morning) leaving. They were those who were not allowed to write the exams because they did not pay their fees. My class exams was to follow immediately after theirs. Watching people of a higher class leave cos they did not pay their fees really showed that the “no fees, no exams” rule had truly taken effect.

As I disembarked from the bus taking me to the exams venue ,something dramatic happened. I did not know that my classmate was also in the bus. She also alighted. She asked me to take her school fees bank teller(which she had just paid that morning )to the faculty admin block to exchange it for school receipt and get her registered as someone who has paid. She was shaking and very nervous. She said that as a result of having not paid, she had not read for the exams due to worries and anxiety. She said she needed to hurry to the classroom to read “even for 30 minutes” before the exams. Would I help her go to the faculty, she asked?

I needed help more than anyone that day, but instead life brought me someone to help. Here I was, yet to pay my fees but I was being asked to go and help someone to pay hers. She did not even know or think that I had not paid.

I collected the bank teller and headed to the faculty admin block. I was the last on the queue. Immediately I finished registering her, the sub-dean (who was the staff responsible for administering exams) came and took the list away.

Some students who had not paid approached her to plead. They spoke in their local dialect. I did not understand them. But soon the sub-dean answered them in English. She said even if they spoke in the tongue of angels, they will not have the exams if their name was not in her list of those who have paid.She said she did not want to lose her job or be suspended. She would not let them write even if they were her biological children,she said. She dismissed them.

When I heard this, I was broken. What then would be my fate, I thought to myself. If she would not consider people from her village,what chance did I stand?Would I miss the whole semester exams and have automatic carry over in all of them?

The sub-dean brought me out of my thoughts. She came out of her office and looked at the people in the corridor. Her eyes fell on me. “What class are you”,she asked. “LLB 3”,I replied. She said “come”.

I followed her to her office and she asked me to pick the exam scripts to her car. I did. At the car,she brought out her list again and looked. Then I heard her say “have you registered”? I said no. She brought out her red pen and wrote my name in the list of those who have paid their fees in the faculty! She then asked me to enter her car and we drove to the exam venue.

In the end,I wrote all my exams just as someone who had registered. There were more than 20 students in my class who were not allowed to write for not paying.

That episode taught me one of my greatest life lessons- that help begets help. That the best and easiest way to help is to be of help.

I have not recovered from that lesson

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Aniefiok Udoabasi is a lawyer