C3 YOU ARE COURAGEOUS BUT NOT STREET WISE

Soon Omoyemi was seen approaching an office tower, the building is a fifty storey building with a big billboard by its gate, on the billboard was this bold inscription "SIR BORIPE" S HOLDINGS"

Sir Boripe was the Africa wealthiest man with a vast business empire that spreads all over the whole world. He owned diamond's mines and he is the leading diamond merchant in Africa. He is also into oil and gas and owned jointly refineries with six countries in Africa.

He owned so many other businesses, but one thing that makes him more powerful among other wealthy men of Africa is his media group. From news print media that is in high dema all over africa, to radio stations that have broad tentacles all over Africa; to TV stations that is the most viewed all over Africa.

His media power made him the most feared among the wealthy people by all the ruling class all over Africa, he can bring any government down with just one negative broadcast; so people always want to be in his good books, if from his media group a man is praised, the whole nation where the man lives will follow that man the deepest trust!

Sir Boripe is a noble and very good man who had raised so many men and women to stardom and to pedestal of success in business. He is a mentor or father to many billionaires, by this his influence is awesomely Scarry all over the world!

Presidents of many nations are his friends and he dines in many state houses. This building is the headquarters for his vast built empire and most of the people that troupe in and out of this place are his head of corporations.

They come here to give reports, take instructions or get trained because there is a training school for his managers in this tower.

To this great man Omoyemi is coming for final of a prolonged interview that has been on for the past seven months. Five hundreds of them started the race to become his junior personal assistant, because his personal assistant is now old and he is thinking of retiring in the next few years.

What sir Boripe wanted to do is to attach a trained junior personal assistant to this old personal assistant so that he can learn how to work with him from the old PA.

Of the five hundred that started the race, only Omoyemi and one other guy called Ireni remained; others had lost out to these two because the two of them are genius!

They attended three different managerial trainings after all others were dropped. Omoyemi and Ireni tied in their score in the tests given to them after those trainings.

The panel of interviewers has been having headache trying to pick one out of these two, but they were inseparable in all the tests they threw at them.

The old PA is called Allen, he really loved these two young men and he did not want to chose any of them by just picking one, if not he would have picked Omoyemi; because when he asked them to come up with new business idea that will really thrive in the country he liked Omoyemi's idea more. Although some other member of this panel too like Ireni's idea better than his!

To break this tie they decided to push the two of them to the boss himself, so they told Sir Boripe everything about the two of them without bias. When they finished he asked them to bring the two of them to him the following day.

When they arrived he spent considerable time separately with each of them and jointly together, at the end he too began to have headache dropping one of the two for the other. Due to this he asked them to go to the company canteen to eat so that he can have time to make up his mind concerning their case.

After one hour of thinking when he was alone, an idea came to him that he believed will help to separate the two. So he sent for them and told them that they should go home and buy the finest white suit any of them can see and come back to his office wearing the suit in a month's time.

That one month's time is this rain soaked June, his mind is to pick the one who arrived in his office the neatest. To this end he began to pray that God will cause rain to fall heavily on this day and God answered his prayers!

He came to the office earlier today, he gave the girl at the reception an instruction that she should not allowed the two of them to enter into the building until he will call for them.

The reason for this is that he wanted to observe their composure under the staring eyes of the people coming in and going out of the building; the monitoring he will do through the monitor in his office which is connected to a camera in the reception.

As he sat behind the monitor Ireni came in and the receptionist told him what she was told, so he turned and calmly sat down looking so clean, fresh and elegant.

Twenty minutes later Omoyemi came in and Sir Boripe almost could not recognized him; because he looked like a person picked out of dumpster!

At first after, seeing him like this he wanted to ask the girl to tell him to go because he cannot allow him to enter his office the way he is. But thinking it over he decided to at least see if Omoyemi could endured the staring eyes on him the way he is; so he kept his eyes on him as the girl at the desk too welcomed him with a big shock!

Ireni too was shocked to see him the way he came in and he could not contain himself. He stood up with deep concern and asked him, "Omoyemi what is this, what happened to you?"

With unperturbed smile he answered, remembering the parting request of Itunu, that he must stay sweet all through. So he kept his promise to her as he sweetly answered Ireni and said, "What you see is what God permitted to happen, don't worry about me!" Then he asked him, "How has things been with you?"

Ireni with mouth hanging open could not believe this guy can staw as sweet as he is under this situation, so also is the receptionist and sir Boripe who watch him through the monitor in his office.

When Ireni came out of his shock he told him what the receptionist told him and the two of them sat down waiting for the boss to call them in.

Actually the two of them have not acted as rival since they have began this interview, in fact they have developed friendship between themselves, because they have come to greatly respect each other. So Ireni did not expect this kind of misfortune to happen to Omoyemi.

The two of them sat down but Ireni could not take his eyes of Omoyemi, but Omoyemi sat down calmly and brought out a novel written by One Olufemi Robert, the title is "He is only after this body"

Sir Boripe analytically watched the two of them for a while and he was more impressed about their maturities.

Ireni sincerely did not rejoice over Omoyemi's misfortune and Omoyemi was not itchy because of his situation.

After a while the girl at the desk told them the boss wants to see them, so they stood up and moved inside. When they got to sir Boripe's office they met Mr Allen. Sir Boripe pointed at a set of clothes and said, "Omoyemi, take these and follow Mr Allen, he will show you a bathroom, clean yourself up and come back for my decision.

Hearing this, Omoyemi knew the boss has been monitoring them and he deeply appreciated his kindness with a hope that the dress will match his stature: so he thanked him wholeheartedly before moving out.

Mr Allen took him to the bathroom, he took his bath, changed into the clean sport top and jeans trousers that fits him as if he was measured before it was bought!

Then he returned to sir Boripe who asked him about his dirty suit? Omoyemi told him he wrapped it in a thick polyethene bag given to him by Mr Allen and kept it with the secretary..

Then he signal to him to sit down and said, " Tell me what really happened to you that you came here like a person picked from a dumpster?

It was like Omoyemi has gotten used to smiling over this matter because he always remember Itunu's demand that he must stay sweet all through, so he said, "Sir, it is a very funny and sad story, I got to the bus stop on the other side of this road as clean as Ireni"

"What then happened" sir Boripe asked and he replied, "A reckless driver knocked me down as I was trying to cross the road" he said this and felt he need not to explain in details or tell him the person who knocked him down was one rotten rich girl driving Lamborghini!

Sir Boripe noticed the pain that momentarily flashed across his face while he talked about the incident, so he decided not ask more about the situation, he only said, "I hope you were not wounded?" Omoyemi said, "Not at all sir"

Then the man turned to Ireni and asked, "You, tell me how did you managed to make it here spotlessly clean as you are in today's messy weather?"

Ireni answered and said, "When you told us to come in white I knew you want to see who among us will come here the neatest, so when I woke up this morning, even though the sky looked so bright like it won't rain, still I decided not to take chance because I knew June's weather is highly unpredictable. So I decided to come in sport top and jeans trousers.

I brought my suit in the suit jacket and begged the security men at the gate to allow me to change into my suit in their security office by the gate"

Hearing this sir Boripe said, "You have what I called street smartness "

He turned to Omoyemi and said, "You are very courageous, if it is another person he will not show up again in this office and sit comfortably under the staring eyes of strangers. Apart from this I see a good sportsmanship spirit in you, if it is some other people, with what has happened to you they will be itchy because they are consumed with thought of loosing out to tbeir rival.

With all these I want to congratulate you because you have gotten yourself a job" When Ireni heard this he was shocked but he did not let it show on his face.

Omoyemi too momentarily could not believe what he heard and while he was trying to digest what he heard he heard sis Boripe added this, "But not this junior personal assistant job, there is an office I am creating for my daughter in this tower, she is an impatient mortal, it will take a person with your kind of spirit to work with her.

Though it will take like a month before you can resume to that office because the preparation needed for the take off is still on. I don't want you to worry about the salary package because you will earn the same salary that the junior Personal assistant will earn.

At this moment another words of Itunu flashed across his mind, " He may not give you the particular job you are gunning for, but he will give you something else"

Remembering this he said in his mind, "I owed that Itunu so much and I will find her out and pay"

After this thought he smiled and said, "Thank you sir, I will wait for the job " Sir Boripe said to him, "When you go out my secretary will give you a small change for all your troubles, it is a small sum to keep your body and soul together till you resume work here"

Omoyemi heartily thanked him before he heard him say, " Add street smartness to your courageous spirit, you need it to survive in the business world because business world is a world of cruel sharks!*

After this he turned to Ireni and shook his hand and said, "Congratulation you have the job, go and meet Mr Allen he will show you your desk, your work start right away.

Both Omoyemi and Ireni stood up, thanked him and moved out.