Nigerian Stories: Chicken Change, Dirty Slap and Eye Service By Matthew Samuel Ozovehe
DIRTY SLAP
Gbam! “What was that?!” Aisosa’s father exclaimed. “Could that be a slap?” He soliloquized quietly as he hoped it was not. Aisosa was the only son of his father, Chief Osahon who lived in Umelu village, Benin City. Aisosa’s mother was late and his step mother hated him because the father loved him more than all her daughters.
“Why would you slap my son this hard with such an oily hand?” Aisosa’s father screamed at his wife when he saw the dirty and oily face of his dear son. It was indeed a “dirty slap”.
CHICKEN CHANGE
The whole class couldn’t stop laughing when Eloghosa gave his own answer to the teacher’s question. Earlier that day, Eloghosa had argued with his friends that he was better than them in English language.
The English teacher asked a question in class later that day and the question was “who can make a sentence with the slang ‘chicken change’”? Eloghosa’s response was “I don’t like this chicken, change it for me”. The whole class couldn’t stop laughing as they all knew ‘chicken change’ is a slang which simply means ‘a small amount of money’.
EYE SERVICE
Chief Matthew was a philanthropist who had a yam plantation. One morning during yam harvest season, Chief Matthew’s boys were working very sluggishly in the farm because the Chief wasn’t with them. A few hours later the chief called the workers and said to them; “The yams each person harvested would be theirs.” Many lamented because they had not really been working and therefore had only few yams, they regretted and promised never to render eye-service. “Attendance to duty only when been watched is eye-service; it is bad to indulge in such.” Chief Matthew advised his boys.
These stories by Matthew Samuel Ozovehe emerged as a winning entry (top 10) in the 2022 Infinite Global Tutors Creative Story Writing Challenge organised by PositiveNaija.
Matthew Samuel Ozovehe
My name is Matthew Samuel Ozovehe. I live in Benin City.
