Walo Black
We called him Walo in our class tradition of having
nicknames that ended in “O”. I was thus “Sifo” (from Asif). However, we had
another Walo in our class. In order to differentiate them from each other, one
became “Walo black” as he was slightly darker complexioned and the other became
“Walo white”! While both were my close friends, this story is about Walo black.
It was in 1990, and I was doing my house job at the
Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria, Nigeria. The hospital
assigned us apartments with two house officers to an apartment. Walo was my
roommate. While we rotated in different departments, we were both posted to the
Internal Medicine rotation at the same time. I moved to Obstetrics and
Gynecology from Internal Medicine. Auwal (Walo black) had now moved to
Pediatrics.
I had gone to the Internal Medicine office to pick up
my evaluation. The secretary asked me if I would take Walo’s evaluation to him
as well as he had not picked it up and he was my roommate. It was sealed in an envelope, but with a
twinkle in her eye, she told me that his evaluation was much better than mine.
I loved Walo, but in order to punish him for doing
better than me, I decided to play a trick on him. I went home to my portable
typewriter (we did not have home computers in those days) and typed up a
letter.
The letter was addressed to Auwal Abubakar from the
Medical and Dental Council on a plain piece of paper (of course I did not have
their letter head). It said to the effect that “We are sorry to inform you that
because of your poor evaluation in Internal Medicine (attached), the Medical
and Dental council regrets to inform you that your medical license is
cancelled”! I signed it with my own signature and enclosed both his sealed
evaluation and this letter in another envelope and put it in his mailbox in the
Pediatrics department. It was such an obvious forgery, and along with his good
evaluation, I thought we will both laugh about it later.
Unfortunately, it did not go as planned. Later that
afternoon, I ran into Walo in the hallway in the hospital. He looked very
unhappy, and he instantly accosted me and said in an aggrieved tone “Do not
Laugh”! Confused, I said, Laugh at what? You know what you did he said in a
severe voice. What happened I asked?
Apparently Walo had got to his mailbox that morning
and read the letter. He saw his perfectly good evaluation and felt very upset
at the letter supposedly from the medical council. He went immediately to his
Pediatrics team and told them about the letter and that he had to go to the
office of the Medical and Dental council right away to sort this out.
Unfortunately, that office was in the neighboring town
of Kaduna, which was an hour bus ride away along the Kaduna - Kano highway,
(which passed through Zaria). He left for that office immediately by bus. After a
long hour in a crowded bus, he got there and started arguing with the staff
there as to how dare they send such a letter for a perfectly good evaluation.
The Medical Council told him that they had issued no
such letter. It was then Walo took a proper look at the letter and realized it
was fake. He saw my signature and knew that I was responsible for this deed.
To add insult to injury, when he got back, he had to
tell his Pediatrics team what had really happened, and they burst out laughing.
Instead of getting sympathy, everyone was laughing, and Walo was mighty upset
at me.
I did not laugh at that time but apologized profusely.
I told him I never imagined that that he would not realize it was fake. I had
even signed it with my name! In the end he forgave me, and as penance, I took
him out to dinner at our favorite restaurant “Shagalinku”.
We did laugh about this afterwards. I eventually left
for America and lost touch with him. Walo became a specialist in Pediatrics and
was a Consultant at the time of his tragic death. It was the same highway, but
this time he was going the other way towards Kano.
I pray that his soul rests in perfect peace.
Walo and Me at Graduation in 1990
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