Junior secondary school and my first contact with Mr. Kushitor was the JETS club.

We joined the jets club because of the tales of this great science teacher. Tall, slim funny looking. Dentition like never seen before. His neck burnt… the story making the rounds was that he had an accident in a laboratory… some chemical poured on his neck. Quite believable… and so we believed it.

I can’t recall ever seeing him eat anything but banana and groundnuts. I’m sure he never ate food. The man who called me fat number 2. He told me to stop eating food but drink just water. I did not understand how I was to stop eating food. He claimed to have come from Topo in Badagry. We looked for Topo on the map of Lagos state … yes; it was a tiny little space. His car was full of books without their cover pages. He always read his books folded. A teacher you don’t want to run into when you come late to school. He’d drive the car very slowly making everybody run.

JETS club. He told us to write our names and put them in a basket. He would call all the names in the basket without looking at the names. And he did!

“Shade”

“1”

“Yemi”

“2”

We were over fifty students in the room. All we did was chant 1, 2,….  

Once he gave us an assignment and demanded we submit the very next day. With Mr. Kushitor, you could never have time for any other thing but his homework.

Early the following, he comes demanding his homework… pointing at Chidi, have done your homework?

“I did some”

Which was more hilarious, the way Chidi answered with all sincerity or the speed at which Mr. Kushitor descended on him panting and drooling as he slapped Chidi on the back repeatedly…. The laughter never ended for weeks to come.

“Hey da gir whaat is your name”

“My name is Chinyere”

“Shuwere”

“No sir, Chinyere, but you can call me chichi…if you can’t call Chinyere”

“When burds are flying, listen… you will hear chi-chi-chi. And you say you are chichi”

There was never really an end to the humour he brought to class. He made us laugh even when he was angry with us. You needed to see Mr. Kushitor Laugh. Omg.. You’ll just see a funny set of teeth; you’ll see a man drooling while trying to draw in air and then you’ll see yourself laughing.

Once Bolanle came late class… we were all seated, it was one of those days when the teaching was perfect. We were practically getting the lesson as the words came out from his mouth… we waited for the words to come out and picked them right on the spot. Suddenly we heard the steps… the first inkling was to ignore. But then, they began getting louder and closer, interrupting the class. 

“Hey, whaat is ya name?” if he ever asks your name, then you’ve done something wrong.

“My name is Bolanle”

“When God’s children gather, devil comes to show himself, have you seen a devil before? Look at …..”

Nobody waited for the end of the conversation. We laughed, Bolanle was left blank, Mr. Kushitor was angry.

Still taken aback with the magic of knowing all the names in the basket, I asked a senior… “How did he know all the names in the basket?”

“Look, he picked the first paper, looked up the name and put it in his pocket. When he got in front of the class, he told you he would call out a name before picking it; he called out the first name and then picks another name. The first name you hear, is the second name he picked”

How did I not guess that?

Mr. Kushitor…..