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OSCA WOVEN WORDS COMPETITION – AKINWOLE JOHN

“Imagination gives birth to things unknown but the writer’s pen turns them into shapes and gives to them living breaths.”

ALSO READ: BOWEN WOVEN WORDS COMPETITION WAS A HUGE SUCCESS

The 2018 OSCA WOVEN WORDS COMPETITION was organized by My Woven Words and it was only for undergraduates of tertiary institutions in Osun State as approved by the ministry of education, Osun state. There were Terms and Conditions for contestants.

OSCA Woven Words Competition remains the “first-of-its-kind” and “one-of-its-kind” in Osun state, Nigeria. To avoid Conflicts of Interest, we reached out to a number of unbiased scholars in a university outside Osun State to assess the submitted manuscripts and select the best contestants. All the contestant got a certificate of participation and some of the submitted manuscripts were selected for online publication.

TOPIC: The Tenacity of Nigerian Youths in National Development and Leadership Roles.

“Hmm, activist turn ex-convict. Even in prison, you still replicated the same wild attitude that brought you very close to death,” the chief warden said out loud at as he handed over my few belongings to me. “I sincerely hope we won’t be seeing you here again.”

“The feeling is mutual, Sir,” I replied.

I changed my clothes, getting rid of the ridiculous prisoner outfit.

Immediately I stepped into the street, I took in successive breaths of the fresh and new air and savoured the healthy scent therein.

“Prison condition is nothing to write home about,” I muttered, squeezing my face disgustingly in the process.

Today makes it exactly eight months since I was remanded in the federal Penentiary without a reasonable crime to my name.

My offence was attributed to my active involvements in a series of actions that was aimed at probing the leadership of this country on how they shut out the involvement of the masses, most especially the youths in the affairs of the nation. Democracy is afterall a government for the people and by the people.

I was at the forefront of one of those protests when I was bundled into a moving vehicle before being driven to the hole where I spent the longest eight months of my life.

Most people will probably think of me as dead because I was denied a lawyer and none of my family or friends knew where I was kept.

I snapped out of my thoughts and checked my pockets for money. Luckily I found enough. I boarded a bike and directed him to my place. After spending some minutes on the road, we located my house.

My words of greeting to my co-tenants went unanswered, they probably couldn’t identify me because of my bushy and intimidating facial hairs.

I flicked the bulb switch, no electricity supply as usual. I said a brief word of prayer, pressed the power button on my laptop and luckily for me, it still had enough power. I patiently waited for it to boot as I thought of what to broadcast to my teeming followers.

“I’m alive and I won’t die until this country is liberated. So if you still believe in the movement, let’s hookup. Nigeria shall be great.” I reread what I typed and clicked on the send option before leaving for the bathroom.

After leveling my bushy hair to a reasonable extent, I checked my laptop and saw more than a thousand replies to my recent post. Someone even commented thus, “Ade Musa for President.”

I sat down wondering who will be my first visitor. The police or my fellow youths?