Jollof Love

1- Bitter Aftertastes

159.

Ninioluwalere stared at the computer screen, unmoving.

Even Oluwadarasimi next to her had stopped munching on her plantain chips. The world has suddenly gone quiet. The horns from outside faded into nothing, and the fan over them was at the highest speed, but Nini felt the sweat prickle on her skin like goosebumps.

"I think you should refresh it, it must be a mistake," Oluwadarasimi, Dara for short, offered.

When Nini made no move, Dara stood and used the mouse to click the cursor on the refresh button, and the page vanished, loading at a snail's pace until it finally came alive with information.

Nini stared at the number again. It was still 159.

"Ahn ahn, abi they made mistake with calculations ni?" Dara asked. "Wait, let's see. English language, you scored 54. In mathematics, you scored 35. Chemistry is a 30. Biology is a 40. Add it all together," there was a pause. Dara moved to sit back on her plastic chair. "What is this? I don't understand."

But Nini understood what had happened that day. She had arrived at the JAMB CBT centre early, waited under the hot sun for the JAMB officials to come, and was even afraid all her knowledge from nights of reading would be fried. She had remembered hearing someone say the intensity of Lagos' sun wanted to compete with the Northern Nigerian sun, and she remembered the huge, sweaty man with a belly the size of a pregnant woman that had ushered them into the exam hall as they all thumb printed and showed their exam slip before entering the vast hall filled with rows of computers.

Nini remembered her assigned computer, the glitchiness to it before she had even begun, and how she had raised her hand in the hall.

"Ehen?" The sweaty man glared at her like she had committed an offense.

"Sir, my computer," she said. "I think it has a problem."

"How would you know when you haven't even started?" He asked.

"But Sir..."

"One more complaint again before the exam, and I would send you out." The man glowered. "At least let us start first. You children and your troubles."

So when they started the exam, the computer had surprisingly behaved. Nini had calculated questions in Mathematics and Chemistry, and everything was smooth running.

Until it wasn't.

The computer screen, all of a sudden, had gone blank, and panic caused Nini's heart to go into overdrive.

"My work!" Nini had screamed so loud. "Sir, my computer!" She pressed several keys on the keyboard, and it didn't switch on. "Sir, it won't start. It won't start! Ah, my God!"

Several exam investigators had rushed to her, each trying to resurrect the work she had done. Finally, the computer blinked back to life, and Nini was back to the login page.

"Oya, reload your JAMB details," the head investigator had said. Nini did as she was told, the entire situation had already made her forget her JAMB registration number. She looked at the JAMB slip as she inputted everything carefully, and when the questions returned, she was looking at a different set of questions, and with less than an hour to go.

"Ah!" She had screamed. "Sir, it is all gone! It is all gone!"

The investigators looked at each other, wordless, and the sweaty man spoke.

"Try to do what you can," he said.

Nini didn't believe she had heard him right. She turned around, stared him in the eyes, and sputtered, "Si...Sir?"