A Bully Meets His Waterloo.

We were in Class 4 in Secondary School when two friends of mine transferred to my school from their old school in Benin City.

The year was 1974.

I had known one of them since childhood. The other one, I had known from afar as the first son of my Primary One teacher. He was the kind of person whom we called “Ajebutter” in those days, which was a euphemism for weak, pampered, and rich. He was very slim, but tall.

By his looks, and the way he walked, being very slim, he appeared to be the perfect target for a bully. True enough, it did not take long for the class bully to begin to pick on him. Ajebutter was a very quiet guy who just went about his business. He did not bother anyone. He had come to our school in obedience to his parents who thought he should leave the city to attend a great school in the village where he would not have any distractions.

The class bully, only God knows why one tends to find them everywhere, was a tall fellow who had slight bow legs, and he was muscular. You dared not make eye contact with him. That was enough reason for you to get a serious slap across the face. If you saw him coming one way, you looked away and made way for him. He was feared by everyone.

One afternoon, after school hours, as we all packed our books to head to the dormitories, Ajebutter took his things, and was walking alone, quietly when the bully walked right into him from behind, and caused him to stumble. His books spilled on the dusty ground. The bully looked at him scornfully and kept walking.

We all helped Ajebutter to pick up his things and continued to the hostel. He was full of rage, but very controlled. He took everything in his strides.

A few days later, the bully walked up to him just like he had done to many of us in the past and slapped him across the face right after school. This time, Ajebutter said to him, “Big guy, I think your time is up. Today, I’m going to teach you a lesson you will never forget. Let’s take this fight to the back of the school.”

We were all curious. Why would this guy who obviously did not look like a match for the bully dare to challenge him so confidently?

We filed along with them to the back of the school. The bully was very confident that he had yet another victim in his bag. Everyone else thought the same. As the fight began, Ajebutter bounced around a little bit like Muhammad Ali. It was a diversion.

He was a Black Belt.

In a flash, he lifted himself up in the air, and executed a move with his legs that I came to see many years later in Claude Van Damme movies. The bully went down. Ajebutter put a knee on him, and rained blows on his face, causing his nose to bleed, and both eyes to puff with injury like a battered Joe Frazier after a pounding by George Foreman.

News spread quickly around the school like wildfire. Goliath had been brought down to his knees. For the entire next year in Class Five, the erstwhile bully walked with his hands behind his back, never saying one word to anyone until we left school.

Ajebutter had come to our school to give us a breath of fresh air. What he accomplished for all of us is a story we all still talk about to this day. I’m probably just putting it in writing for the first time because I love to write.

Michael Ovienmhada.

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