[OPINION] Situations When A Loser Could Conveniently Claim The Winner's Prize

By Anayo M. Nwosu

An incident that happened in 1987 changed for good, my understanding of the need to manage the outcome of my efforts or battles in life.


I was 17 years old then and my brother, Tochukwu was 14.

For the reasons best known to Tochukwu, he decided to fight me inside the room I shared with him.

My brother had just enrolled into a Karate class and was in a hurry to avenge all the beatings I had given him since he could remember.

Being more experienced in two-fighting, I was able to neutralize my junior brother's aggression and gave him the beating of his life even though, I was very careful to measure the the frequency and the intensity of my jabs and punches to avoid a scary situation.

But, I noticed a rather strange behavior  in my brother as I beat him. He seemed to have a bewildering strategy.

As I wrestled with him, Tochukwu surprisingly managed bolted the door of the room to stop our mother, who was in the adjoining room, from gaining entrance into the room and separating us.

Seeing my brother's unusual zeal to fight me, I intensified the pummeling despite his best of efforts to fend off my blows. I needed to break his resolve.

As I rained blow after blow on him, Tochukwu would be shouting repeatedly, "Anayo, I will kill you today. You are a dead man. Nobody will rescue you today!"

The illogical and wrong commentary of the situation inside the war room made me, the assailant, very confused in that I started laughing.

I got up from my brother who I had pinned onto the ground thinking that he had gone crazy. There was no way he would be saying what he was saying and still be normal. He didn't appear as if he was joking.

To my rude shock, my brother was to deliver the most convincing narrative or commentary.

Tochukwu shouted as he made for the door to unlock it, "God saved you. You're lucky that Mama is around. I would have killed you today. See how you are panting after a small beating".

The opening of the door was a great relief to my mum who was already banging on the hitherto locked door, begging Tochukwu not to kill me.

All the children in our extended family congregated inside my father's unfenced compound to watch history happen. They could clearly hear Tochukwu's commentary of our fight and were impressed with his achievement of beating his elder brother, the powerful Anayo.

Tochukwu was not done yet.

He snapped, "take the last beating" as he plastered a dirty slap on my unguarded but an amused face, dashed out like a hyena and ran away. This happened right in front of our mother and some of the children who had taken a close hearing position in our living room.

Of course, my mum, Mama Obiora, held me from pursuing my brother to avenge the slap. She probably didn't want Tochukwu to continue beating me outside the house.

For so many weeks, the youths and mostly those of my brother's age mates celebrated Tochukwu for having the courage to beat up his elder brother.

None of the hailers knew that Tochukwu was made by my mum to apologize for fighting me that very day.

For whatever reason best known to him, my junior brother never recanted publicly that he beat me up. He maintained that I was the person that received the beating and not him.

And most people also wouldn't believe my own account of what happened.

Till Tochukwu died in 2006, only both of us knew what exactly happened inside the room.

Most often in life, the person who takes the glory or is celebrated as a winner is usually the undeserving one.

Good communication strategy and vigilance are key to helping the real winner claim his or her prize otherwise he or she will lose the crown or prize of success which could be promotion or a recognition to a smart Jacob.