THE FRESHMEN SWINDLER (1)
By Olajide Oladokun
Prologue
My name is Simon, a 300 level student of the Premier Faculty. I contested in the last election and lost. But you know what they say about failure? Good for you! I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m sure of victory this time around. I’m not proud, I’ve done my homework right, and I’m sure I’ll be the next faculty president!
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DOROTHY
You were looking lost and tired, standing at the quadrangle; you were supposed to do your faculty registration, but everything and everyone looked strange to you, and you didn’t know what to do. You were supposed to ask for help, but you were unusually tongue-tied. You needed a saviour.
I saw you looking all white and tired, physically and emotionally. How did I know? I’ve been in this game for quite a while. I approached you and asked for your name. Your name was as beautiful as you were, but I wasn’t interested in that. I had other important things to attend to other than heart matters. I gave you a mini-tour around the faculty showing you important offices and lecture room, giving prominence to the Faculty Secretariat; after all, that is the goal. We became friends, and I was the next best thing; after Tinder, I became your go-to person for information; I was there to help you out with your course registration and some other way. To you, I was a knight, good looking and in golden armour, I was the answer to your mother’s prayer. You introduced me to all your friends and I became Big Brother AFAS. It never ceased to amaze you how someone could be that nice, it’s barely a week we met and it felt like ages. It was a month already and I didn’t ask you out, you were surprised but decided to be patient, you had your sight on the fattest bone. I opened a WhatsApp group and made you an admin, the group was for the tutorial I was organizing. All correspondence were addressed to you, it made you feel special and hopeful. ‘Maybe he’s just taking his time,’ you thought. Unknown to you, there were two other WhatsApp groups, with different admins, but you’d never find out, I’d mastered my game!
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RAWLINGS
It was your first time in the University of Ibadan. Coming all the way from Lagos with all your swag and pride, you had it all planned in your head; the kind of life you’d live in school. You wanna bam with the big boys, you had the net worth of an average yahoo boy and you hoped to expand your network. In no time you’ll have girls swooning around and over you even though you were admitted to study Yoruba, at least it’s better than animal science. First thing first, you needed to register with the Faculty and that was where fate (in your own perspective) and ambition (in my own perspective) brought us together. Unlike Dorothy, you approached me first and that saved me the stress of wooing you. As a yahoo boy myself (parading as a cryptocurrency trader), it was easy to bond with you and I saw in you a prospective tool for campaign. I’d have expected you know better as a Lagos boy, but you were a bloody freshman, blinded by my grace. The following week I told you you’ll do well as a course rep and you embraced the idea, no better way to gain popularity. With the little tricks I taught you, things went the right way and you were made the course rep. Your respect for me skyrocketed, you made me your role model and I made you the admin of a WhatsApp group. I gave you the responsibility of filling the group to its capacity and you did well with that, I was happy because that meant over 200 votes.
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Fast forward to second semester…
It was time to test my popularity and their loyalty; I sent a graphics to all the groups and asked them to trend it on their social media platforms by 7:00pm GMT+1. I wasn’t surprised it was all over the place, freshmen really show me love o, why wouldn’t they anyway? They wouldn’t have passed GES101 without the free tutorial I organized. Then the whole faculty knew that XYZ cares.
Few weeks into the second semester, the electoral ban was lifted and the rat race began. That was when my enemies started attacking me. At first they came in form of the higher authorities, they increased the CGPA benchmark to 3.5 knowing fully well that I was struggling with my 2 point something CGPA but I serve a living God. They eventually reduced it and I was the first to get the form. I started my campaign officially; it wasn’t much of a hard work since I had my supporters already.
Comrades, na simple tactics! The incumbent president won with 596 votes, right? I had 3 WhatsApp groups, 256 x 3 equals 768, even without the election I’ve won already, not even Oxlade can defeat me with his recent popularity. With the help of my friend in political science, I drafted a 3-page manifesto and copies were quickly circulated. Even though I didn’t understand half of what was written on it, I trusted the writer. Little wonder some of my enemies in the fourth estate, who thought they know better, almost tore me down at the press night. Truth be told, I couldn’t answer most of the questions they asked as regards the plans I had for the Faculty. But then, I don’t need ideas to win the election, I had Dorothy’s over 200 friends’ supports and Rawling’s to bank on, coupled with a number of giveaways I’ve done.
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Epilogue
I won the election and you were the first to congratulate me. I didn’t reply your message and it didn’t bother you. After all, I just achieve something hooooge, so I was probably basking in the euphoria of it. When I didn’t reply your messages after two weeks, you decided to call me. I didn’t pick your calls either yet it didn’t bother you. ‘Maybe the workload was too much,’ you thought. The painful pang of reality hit you after a fruitless month of trying to reach me. You told a staylite about me and he said you’ve been swindled, not jilted. He explained politricks to you, how those swindlers go about looking for freshmen to achieve their political ambitions and dispose them thereafter. You couldn’t believe your ears, you felt cheated, used and dumped, but that’s the truth, you’ve been a victim of a FRESHMEN SWINDLER!
