Dr. Ebuka Okeke was the most famous young doctor in Nigeria; his fame had spread from his state to other states like a wild harmattan fire on dried grasses when he returned from Great Britain, clothed in an impressive certificate. NTA frequently pontificated that he was
the first Igbo man that studied Medicine and Surgery at Oxford University.
Newspapers and magazines had his face grinning on the cover pages. But he was not happy; he regarded himself as the most unhappy man in Eastern Nigeria. In fact, Dr Ebuka Okeke wished he was not born;
he wished the floor would open and swallow him. He wished he had the temerity to take away his life. Many people envied his opulence and he envied their happiness. He wished he could swap moods with those
people, those poor but happy people.
He sat up in his bed and lit a cigarette. God, why didn’t you strike me dead when I decided to study medicine? He thought gloomily, as hot sweat poured down his worried face. He tossed his cigarette into the ashtray in anger and it sent up a plum of smoke.
A bee buzzed musically round the artistically furnished bedroom and then perched on the artificial flowers; the rose quivered in the light breeze and the bee flew up in a hurry, as if it had forgotten something so essential in the bees’ kingdom. The window louvres were it’s stumbling block. The bee quarreled with the louvres, buzzing with monotonous regularity; then rushed at Dr. Ebuka, as though to attack him for closing the louvres.
It buzzed round and round Dr Ebuka’s head. Furious, he caught it, threw it on the ground, and stamped it to death with the sole of his shoe, as though the bee was the cause of his unhappiness, his misery.
He stared resentful at the dead bee, and the memories of his gravest mistake came rushing back. His gravest mistake was the day
—was it ten years now?—when he resolved to study Medicine. He shuddered at the memory and bit his lower lip.
When Ebuka Okeke turned 17, his conceited father purchased a JAMB form for him and compelled him to study medicine, albeit he had told his father and mother–may her gentle soul rest in peace–that he
preferred fine and applied arts to every discipline on this planet.
Young Ebuka shook his head and said, “Daddy, drawing or painting gives me joy. It is my forte. I detest natural sciences.” “You must study Medicine or I will strangle you to death!,” his father roared.
“Who are fine artists? Poor chaps who paint houses and naked women and sign-boards–“
“Daddy, I will paint naked women and ladies and gentlemen as well,” the lad said in his low innocent tone. “I’ll paint you and Mum and hang it on the Niger Bridge for everyone to see.”
His father’s eyes flashed fire. ” Don’t be cretinous, you
knucklehead!” he thundered. ” Look, we are from Onitsha, and not one of those small towns in Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Philip Emeagwali, Chike Obi, etc are Onitsha people. We have the best lawyers in Nigeria; we also have medical doctors.
So why do you want to be different? Why do you want to embarrass this great city? God! Mrs. Iweka, my neighbour, will laugh at me if she sees my son drawing and painting breasts and houses!–In short,
if I see a pencil in your hand I will kill you!”
“Daddy, I know that medicine will fetch me money . But it cannot bring me joy . Money is not everything. Let me paint and draw naked women and the blue sky. Let me draw a smiling frog and dancing toads. Let me draw a boy who is giving his love a flower. Let me paint
the Passion of Christ. Let me follow my dreams, Dad. I have been obeying you since I was born, Daddy, and I beg you to let me disobey you now and follow my dreams. Please, Daddy.”
“Then you will be paying your tuition fees, useless brat!” his father said, and stormed into his room. His father was well known for his morbid obsession with professional courses: medicine, law, engineering, etc. And Ebuka did not know how to alter him.
For weeks, Ebuka cried under the Udara tree, telling himself that he would never read medicine. Over my dead body, he thought, as he scrambled to his feet. The fear of being abandoned on the campus by his father, however, compelled Ebuka to study medicine overseas.
He would be drawing the pictures of women’s breasts in class while his white professors taught them, the students, human anatomy, life cycle of a cockroach, and other equally boring things.
How he made good grades and graduation never ceased to amaze his allies and foes.
Back in Nigeria, the best hospitals, like hungry dogs, dived him like a bone. He chose General Hospital, because there was a corner for him to draw and paint.
Oftentimes he would leave his dying patients and sneak into the corner to draw Tom and Jerry and paint a smiling frog.
One morning, foggy and windy, a dying daughter of the State Governor was rushed into the hospital in a trolley. She was trembling like a jellyfish and her eyes popped out like an owl’s.
The first thing Dr. Ebuka wanted to do was: drop his stethoscope, pick his pencil and draw her on a cardboard and hang the picture in his toilet. In fact, at night, he sat beside the dying girl and drew her breasts on a cardboard and painted the left breast yellow; he was painting her right breast green and white–the colours of Nigerian flag–when the State Governor came into the ward and caught him by the neck and flung him against the wall. Then the State Governor picked a bucket and rushed at him. If the nurses had not interfered the fat State Governor would have flogged
Dr. Ebuka to death with that red bucket.
The girl eventually gave up the ghost and he lost his job. And when he opened a private hospital at Awka, no one knocked at the door. His reputation was ruined. Every Okeke and Okafor schmoozed that he preferred to paint frogs and breasts to his “medical call”.
All his friends disappeared since he was now jobless. Even the one-eyed girl he wanted to marry left him and married a one-eyed man at Nsugbe. So here he was in his room, shaking his head and lamenting that things have fallen apart.
Then suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for his father came over him; he picked the gun in his drawer and trapped downstairs. His old father was drinking palm wine under the mango tree and grumbling over The Sun newspaper.
When he saw the gun in his son’s shaking hand he dropped his elephant tusk and staggered to his feet. “I’m sorry daddy, but I have to kill you,”he said, and his father began to tremble like the mango leaves. “Please, Ebuka! Please! Remember I am your father,”
“I remember you destroyed my life.I loved painting and drawing, Dad, but you compelled me to study the course I detested. I told you that I would never make a good doctor, but you wouldn’t listen.
Now my life has crashed down. I have lost everything, including my one-eyed sweetheart. “
“Please drop that gun,” his father pleaded. “Please drop it first. Shooting does not fit you–You are not a hunter and I am not a wild animal. Drop the gun and let us drink palm wine and talk about Buhari’s lopsided and mad appointments.”
“Rest in peace,” Dr. Ebuka said, and pulled the trigger. His father’s chest burst open and and he landed on the grass; blood carpeted the ground.
A loud cry came from the tree and he looked up.
Musa, his father’s servant was in the tree, staring at Dr. Ebuka. His heart began to hammer in his chest. For a moment the compound was enveloped in silence. Then Dr. Ebuka staggered back and fainted.
When consciousness descended upon him, he blinked his eyes open and saw a giant policeman staring at him.
He looked around. Good God! He was handcuffed at the police station.

He stumbled to his feet and thought, Who brought me here? The days crawled by and he was tried. The day he would be sentenced to death, the executioner asked him if he had anything to tell Nigerians.
He lifted his head in agony and said, ” First of all, I want to implore God to forgive me my iniquities and accept my soul…My advice? Tell parents to let their children follow their dreams. No course or subject is insignificant. And now hang me immediately. I can’t wait to join my Creator.”

They took him and hanged.


The End!!!

Hardethaewoh:
good story telling skills! thumbs up!
I have 2 questions though,
1. is that the Dr Ebuka in pix?

2. Could you relate all these to Swallow your pride

Yes, he's late