By Bunmi Sofola
MAJORITY of Nigerians don’t actually have any plans for retirement. By the time they hit the statutory retirement age – 60-65 … 70, a lot of them would have fiddled with their official files with sworn affidavit attesting to ages that belie their wrinkled faces. Retire they must though – eventually. With compulsory retirement on the increase, some were not 60 yet by the time they got the letters that burnt holes into their confidence – and their fiddling tactics!
Andy always had an open house on his birthdays. His impending 55th Birthday – a round figure, was going to be quite elaborate when a couple of days to the D-day, he got the dreaded golden handshake from the government. He went cold. Should he cancel? He couldn’t, a handful of ‘loyalists’ he’d helped secure contracts over the years had already started donating bags of rice, assorted alcoholic drinks, and a cow or two towards his birthday celebration. He was still ensconced in his sprawling official residence and decided to give himself a going-away party there, albeit for the last time.
“Only it wouldn’t be as elaborate as we planned otherwise tongues would wag that I was spending bribe money” he explained. “After the modest bash, we had to relocate to a house I’d almost completed. Good thing I had that as it would have been difficult to eject tenants in my other properties without drawing attention to myself. By the time I’d
hurriedly completed the building. my official quarters had already been allocated to my replacement who called brandishing his allocation letter. I’d never liked him – he’d always been too ambitious and I am sure he was part of the reason I was sent on early retirement. I told him I would be out before the date stipulated on my letter, and he looked as if he didn’t believe me. Was he hoping I would plead with him for an extension?
“It took almost a year” for us to properly settle in the new house and after that happened, I suddenly discovered I had a lot of time on my hands.
“My wife runs a very successful supermarket and our children could hardly be called kids. Most of the time, I was alone in the house with an elderly maid, who’d been with us for years. After lunch, I would go to the club and join other retirees to discuss politics and flirt with some local women. I found it a bit depressing. Then the maid had to leave when one of her children had a baby. Within weeks, my wife had acquired the service of a trainee cook. She was studying Domestic Science at one of the Polytechnics and my wife took her on to serve her practica1s pending the time she would look for a proper maid. Joyce, the new cook was introduced to my wife by her sister who worked in her shop.
“She reported for work the next day decked in a decent dress and an apron. I almost suppressed a giggle when she breezed in professionally. Who was she trying to impress? My wife does all the cooking in the house – all she had to do was serve them up and maybe prepare a few side dishes. But I let her be as she bustled around the house setting
plates and garnishing meals she heated up! The more I saw her, the friendlier I became towards her. We chatted a lot and I discovered she was a very intelligent girl from a fairly comfortable background. She told me, she opted to study Domestic Science because that was the only subject she was comfortable with.
“At the club, I mentally compared her with the women we usually flirted with and she beats all of them hands down in beauty and intellect. When my wife came home in the evening, the family meal would be on the table so that she wouldn’t have to do much. She suffered from arthritis and most nights, she was always rubbing her joints with foul smelling ointments. I’d more or less gotten used to all that, and the fact that her figure was already going `south’ . Everyday, I found myself looking forward to seeing Joyce – always well groomed and happy. Her figure was stirring dangerous feelings in my loins.
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