One  morning like that in the Faculty of Arts, and everything seemed normal until Dr. Bamidele, popularly known as “Mr. No-Nonsense”, decided to take attendance.

Now, if you’ve ever attended a Nigerian university, you’ll know attendance isn’t just a list, it’s survival. It determines grades, destiny, and sometimes… whether your name appears in heaven’s book of GP.

Dr. Bamidele, wearing his famous oversized glasses and armed with a red biro, started calling names. “Adeyemi Funke?”
“Present sir!”
“Okafor Wisdom?”
“Yes sir!”

Then came the turning point.

He called, “Johnson Emmanuel?”

No response. He repeated, louder, “Johnson Emmanuel!”

Suddenly, a voice from the back shouted, “Sir! I’m around spiritually!”

The entire class burst into laughter. 

Dr. Bamidele adjusted his glasses, visibly confused. “Spiritually? Young man, this is not Mountain of fire  Ministries, this is Linguistics 302!”

But Johnson wasn’t done. “Sir, I’m fasting, so my body is weak but my spirit is attentive!”

At this point, even Dr. Bamidele couldn’t keep a straight face. He smiled, something no one had witnessed since 2018  then wrote on the board:

“Your spirit may be willing, but your attendance is still zero.”

The class roared again.

After that incident, “I’m around spiritually” became a class slang throughout our institution.