CHAPTER 1: Bídèmí is a well-behaved and brilliant JSS 2 student at a school in Ilesa, Osun State. His schoolmates often insult him as "a bastard and a prostitute's son". When he asks his mother (Róñkẹ́), she says the father of Ọláníkẹ̀ẹ́ (her second child) is also his father and that Alábàáṣe is both her maiden surname and his father's surname. Bídèmí believes this and starts calling Ismaila "my father" instead of "Ọláníkẹ̀ẹ́'s father" (as most people call him). However, Ọláníkẹ̀ẹ́'s father doesn't like Bídèmí because he isn't his biological son. He only pretends because Róñkẹ́ has bribed him to pretend to be Bídèmí's father. At a point, his hostility makes Róñkẹ́ leave his home with her children. However, they later return when Ismaila has a vehicle accident and needs to be cared for. The vehicle is withdrawn from Ismaila,who becomes a motor park tout hunted by the police. At this time, Bídèmí has to leave school due to his mother's inability to pay his fees (due to bribing Ismaila!) and now stays home with his sister, Níkẹ̀ẹ́. One day, Ismaila beats Bídèmí into coma for beating his sister for breaking a cup. When Róñkẹ́ comes home to get money for the hospital bills, she finds 200 naira missing and fights Ismaila (until his friends arrive the scene and pay the money and half of the hospital bills). The next day, Róñkẹ́ files a divorce suit against him. It is in court that Bídèmí hears that Ismaila is not his real father. After this, Ismaila (who carries people's luggages for money in addition to his motor park tout job) absconds with someone's luggage and is jailed for 2 years. Bídèmí's owing the school 3 terms' school fees and being absent from school for long cost him a scholarship opportunity. This angers him so much that he threatens his mother with a cutlass to show him his real father.
CHAPTER 2: When Róñkẹ́ is in SS2, Fẹ́mi Òòṣàfúnminíyì and 2 of her other classmates are the ones who are good at Maths. One day, Róñkẹ́'s waist beads get scattered to the floor after her being caned by the Maths teacher for her poor performance. Róñkẹ́ goes to Fẹ́mi for private coaching. Along the line, she falls in love with him and makes the first move. He agrees to marry her in future. Most of the students (including Róñkẹ́) party everyday but Fẹ́mi faces his studies squarely. At Lọlá Ìbídùn's birthday party, Gbọlá and Títí go into a dark corner together from 1-6 am.
CHAPTER 3: A wave of transfers brings Mr Ẹ̀san to Róñkẹ́'s school. He is a hardworking and no-nonsense teacher. When he disciplines Lọlá Ìbídùn for applying cosmetics under her locker's cover in class, she accuses him of sexual harassment. Mọ̀rúfá and Kẹ́mi expose the truth about the plot she has told them about earlier. Lọlá and her false witnesses are all punished. A week to their final exams, Títí tells Gbọlá she is 4 months pregnant for him. Her father ejects her from the house but later takes her back in. After several intakes of abortion drugs that appeared not to work, the foetus comes out by itself but lands Títí in the hospital. Her father pays her 5,000 naira hospital bill and leaves Gbọlá and his influential mother to God. Fẹ́mi gets the school's best result in their SSCE. Róñkẹ́ and Títí make a few papers while Lọlá and Gbọlá fail all their papers. Fẹ́mi continues his schooling while Róñkẹ́ gets a job in the Finance Dept in the secretariat in Ibadan. She lives with her friend, Fúñkẹ́, in Ibadan.
CHAPTER 4: One weekend, Fẹ́mi (while on a visit to his elder brother, a doctor) branches to see Róñkẹ́. Róñkẹ́ and Fúñkẹ́ welcome him warmly but he doesn't stay the night with them. Later on, Róñkẹ́ starts dating several men, rejects Fúñkẹ́'s warnings and eventually gets her own apartment. She doesn't respond to Fẹ́mi's letters and hugs another man in his presence one day. Róñkẹ́ is sleeping with her boss in the office (DG,i.e. director-general), Chief Olówólayémọ̀ and Dr Wàsíù. Lọlá Ìbídùn now sells babies' clothes in Osogbo.
CHAPTER 5: Fúñkẹ́ and Abíọ́dún get married and have children together. Róñkẹ́ is now a student at the College of Education in Ilesa and continues her promiscuous lifestyle. Fẹ́mi gets admitted into LAUTECH, Ogbomoso and Akin into OAU, Ile-Ife. Róñkẹ́ also dates Akin Balógun (a bank manager),whose wife embarrasses her at a party. Róñkẹ́ fails her final-year exams and earns an extra year. All her lecturer lovers disappoint her. Chief Olówólayémọ̀ replaces her with a younger woman. Róñkẹ́ starts dating Fèyí Ògúnrìndé, who gives her clothes and jewellery stolen from his ex-girlfriend (Bímbọ́) as gifts. He disappears into thin air before these items are seen on Róñkẹ́ and she is expelled from the school. Akin is posted to Kaduna State and Fẹ́mi to Imo State for National Youth Service.
CHAPTER 6: Róñkẹ́ is born in Osogbo by an Osogbo-indigene father (Láyí Alábàáṣe) and a Bendel-State-indigene mother (Margaret). Margaret is reared up by her maternal aunt, Lydia. Róñkẹ́ is the first daughter of Láyí (who has had 3 sons from his first wife). Láyí dies before Margaret could get pregnant again. Margaret rears up Róñkẹ́ until she starts working in Ibadan. Lọlá loses 2,000 naira to fraudsters. Gbọlá and his gang of armed robbers are caught and executed. The shame makes his mother commit suicide. Múbọ̀ earns life imprisonment for cocaine trafficking. Fẹ́mi comes home to meet his family in Ilesa, where he meets his future wife (Motúnráyọ̀ Ọlọ́wẹ̀, who is doing her national youth service in Ondo State). Róñkẹ́ stays put in Ilesa and doesn't go home to her mother in Osogbo. Her mother hears that she is pregnant,sets out for Ilesa to see her but perishes in an accident on the way.
CHAPTER 7: Fẹ́mi marries Motúnráyọ̀ a year after their youth service. Mọ̀rúfá and Kẹ́mi are at the wedding and report (as nurses in Osogbo) that Títí's marriage has been childless because of that abortion. Róñkẹ́ learns from Títí's experience and keeps her own pregnancy, though she doesn't know the father. Fèyí, who she most suspects is the father, has disappeared. She later marries Ismaila Alábàáṣe and has Ọláníkẹ̀ẹ́ for him. By the time Ọláníkẹ̀ẹ́ is 2 years old, Ismaila has become hostile to Bídèmí as seen in the first chapter of this book...
This story teaches us that patience is a virtue. Róñkẹ́'s earlier statement, "I am no longer in the Sùúrùlérè (Patience is rewarding) camp but in the Ọlọ́runṣògo (God provides glory) camp" is the basis for the title of this novel.
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