The WhatsApp group was called "BUS 204 Group 7 🔥🔥", and for two weeks the fire emojis were the most active thing in it.
Bayo had created the group the day the lecturer read out the list. He had shared the project brief, a suggested outline and a polite message: "Let's meet Thursday 4pm at the faculty library to share tasks." Two people replied. Chidinma said, "Okay." Somebody called Femi reacted with a thumbs-up. The other two, Ruth and Daniel, said nothing at all.
On Thursday, only Chidinma came.
"It's always like this," she said, dropping her bag on the table. "Some people do the work, some people put their names."
They started anyway. They divided the project into five parts, the way the lecturer had suggested, and the two of them began working on the first two. By the following week, they had done three parts between them, and Bayo's patience was wearing as thin as the hostel's mattresses.
He typed a long message in the group. He wrote that it was unfair. He wrote that people who did nothing should not get marks. He wrote that he would tell the lecturer exactly who did what. He read it again, his thumb above the send button.
Then he deleted it.
Instead, he looked up the other three names on the class list and found their phone numbers. He called Femi first.
Femi answered on the fourth ring, sounding surprised. When Bayo explained, there was a pause. "Honestly, I thought the group was dead," Femi said. "Nobody was saying anything specific. I didn't know what I was supposed to do."
"Section four," Bayo said. "The marketing plan. Can you have a draft by Monday?"
"Monday. Yes. Send me what you people have done so I don't repeat it."
Ruth did not answer her phone, so Bayo sent her a private message: Hi Ruth, it's Bayo from BUS 204 Group 7. We need someone for the financial projections. Are you able to take it? Deadline Monday.
She replied two hours later. Her father had been in hospital in Ibadan for most of the month. She had been travelling up and down. She was sorry, she would try her best, and could someone show her the template?
Bayo stared at the message for a long time, thinking about the angry paragraph he had nearly sent to everyone.
Daniel never replied at all.
On the morning of the presentation, Group 7 met an hour early. Femi's marketing plan was better than anyone expected. Ruth's numbers were rough, but she had stayed up to finish them on a bus and Chidinma helped her fix the totals. They practised twice. Chidinma, who hated speaking in public, took the introduction, because Bayo promised to stand right beside her.
Daniel arrived five minutes before they were called, asking which slide was his.
"None," Bayo said, and it surprised him how calm his voice was. "We'll tell the lecturer what each person did, as she asked. You can tell her what you did."
The presentation went well. Afterwards, the lecturer asked each member to describe their contribution. Daniel said he had "helped with research". Nobody argued. Nobody needed to.
That night, Bayo renamed the WhatsApp group. It was now called "BUS 204 Group 7 ✅". Below it, he typed: "Thank you all. Ruth, greet your dad for us."
Three people replied with long messages. One person reacted with a thumbs-up.