When I was in Primary 4, we were compelled by our class teacher to buy an English textbook for our English studies as the subject was compulsory for all pupils. It was Macmillan Primary English Course Pupil's Book 4 by O. Taiwo, L. Longe, and W. Ijioma.
The book became one of my most treasured books and I read many interesting stories in “First Day at School (Agbo lives in a town of Lagun, which is not far from Ibadan)”, “I am Gandoki, the father of Garba”, “Mike the Engineer”, “Mr. and Mrs. Malaika” et cetera.
One of us would stand before the rest of the class and read these passages aloud every morning and our teacher would ask questions, especially the lessons learnt from the story that was read.
But one of the most interesting stories to me was in Module 22; a story which featured “Owie the Flute Player”. For the sake of time and space, let me just summarize the story:
Owie was the best flute player in his town (probably the only one). One day, he wanted to know how important he was, he called his wife and told her he would pretend to be dead to know how much his people loved him and how they could not do without him.
The plan went ahead as planned and his wife rubbed his body with shea butter and started wailing over her husband's "dead body".
The king was sad when he heard about Owie's death. The people mourned Owie. They gave him a fine burial but the coffin contained a trunk of a banana tree instead.
But with time, the villagers forgot about Owie and they got a new flute player to play his flute. Though he was not as good as Owie, the king and his people were contented with him.
Owie had heard about the flute player. One day while he was playing, Owie jumped out from the bush and demanded his flute.
At first, everyone was shocked but on hearing Owie's confession, the king was angry and told Owie the flute player to go back to the land of the dead where he belonged.
"So, Ayomide, what did you learn from the story," my teacher snapped at me. I had been engrossed in the reading.
"Well, we should not be too proud and EVERYONE IS REPLACEABLE, no matter how good they think they may be," I replied.
"Very good," my teacher said while everyone in the class clapped.
Have a historic week ahead! #HistoryVille
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