The Ilorin Shock EPISODE 19

Episode Nineteen: Borrowed Prestige

Life finally found a rhythm.

In our new teacher’s house, mornings began before the sun fully woke up. By 5 a.m., we were already on our feet. Cold water for ablution, sleepy eyes, quiet yawns. We lined up to pray, verses rising slowly into the dawn. From prayer to recitation, from recitation to silence our mornings were long and disciplined.

By the time the clock touched 8, we prepared for school.

I was always late.

But this time, lateness didn’t come with fear.

At school, they understood. Not because the house was far but because of where I lived. Everyone knew Mallam Babulhameen. They knew whose house I came from. Teachers would look at the time, look at me, and simply wave me in.

“Go and sit.”

No punishment.

No shouting.

My classmates noticed.

Some admired it. Some envied it.

They joked with me, calling me “principal pikin” even though I wasn’t. They laughed, but there was respect in their voices. The same boy who once walked back home with a broken heart now walked into school carrying borrowed prestige.

After school, something else happened that still feels unreal when I think about it.

The principal would sometimes call me.

“Come.”

I would enter her car quietly, sit properly, and watch the streets pass by through the window. No dust on my clothes. No long walk under the sun. She would drop me at our house junction before driving off to her own home.

People saw it.

And they remembered.

Children stared. Adults nodded. Some whispered.

And inside me, two feelings lived together.

Gratitude… and caution.

Because I knew this comfort was not truly mine. It was a shadow I was standing under. And shadows move when the light shifts.

Still, after everything I had been through the hunger, the beatings, the fear this felt like a pause. A breath. A moment where life allowed me to rest my shoulders.

But Ilorin never gives peace without watching first.

And even as I rode home in the principal’s car, a small voice inside me kept saying:

Enjoy it. But don’t get used to it.

Because borrowed prestige has an expiry date.

To be continued… Episode 20