Me sef I tire!

Gathered Things

2010-03-28T03:33:00.000+01:00

I find myself sweeping up the shards of something I broke. A now unidentifiable thing that fell from my hands moments before, as I was still lost in some place between consciousness and the alternative.

The broom I am using has a long, crude wooden handle and as I sweep furiously, gathering the pieces in a blurry heap and raising enough dust to make my eyes water, my hands begin to bleed.

It is then that I hear a voice which surely must be my mother's telling me things I already know. You have left too many things unfinished. There have been other things shattered and gathered. You go too close to the brink. Too close.

I do not look up. A voice is nothing to see. I finish gathering the pieces as a pale drop of blood trickles down the handle and disappears into the head of the broomsticks. I tell myself that the breaking of this thing will be different from my other failings. This one will not have fallen to the earth in vain.

I step carefully across the yard of swept up pieces. Spitting the phlegm that has gathered in my throat as far as I can. I let the broom lean against the mud wall and and sit on an overturned mortar in the backyard. It is then that the real tears come.

SHE EATS HER CHILDREN

2009-05-23T19:10:00.002+01:00

I am talking about Nigeria, the colonial contraption that is our purported Motherland. She has an appetite that is unhealthy, unwholesome, and ungodly. Nigeria feeds on her children. She is no tree of liberty to be watered every now and again by the blood of tyrants. Indeed, despots of varying ideological and sartorial persuasions have violated her whether it is by unbuckling and pulling down the khakis, or by furling the babarigas.

Our mother is abused and weary, a victim of Stockholm syndrome who returns to molest her offspring.

And now in the delta, she eats yet again, her children and her elderly, two-by-two but in a way that even Noah would not approve. The Nigerian State is at war with the Nigerian Citizen. The Nigerian citizen is doomed, because his compatriots believe that his murder is justified, and that his mother is well within her rights to commit infanticide.

Nigeria, my heart-wrenching country is adopting the tactics of Al-Qaeda in Iraq i.e.: kill the innocents, and the enemy will be pressured to retreat. The murder of the very old and the too young is the subject of the most callous statements on the floor of our parliament. A supposed joke was even made of the entire scenario in the House of Representatives. I can tell you now with all the conviction I can muster that nobody represents me in that house.

Our President is sick, but I do not speak of his body. I’m talking about his mind. He continues in office, the worthy heir to the murderous legacy of his predecessors. He may have declared assets worth a couple of million dollars, but the man is morally in the red. People -poor people- are being killed every day in this onslaught. So if you are sitting at your desk in whatever locale, and you think that this is okay, or necessary, or justified, I can assure you my friend, that you are complicit.

The details upset me too much. I do not want to write, but at the same time, I cannot be quiet. As a friend said to me, to not say anything simply because I do not want to write would be self-indulgent, and I dare add, wrong.

Nigeria eats her children to applause and without remorse.

I’m angry and sad and deeply ashamed.

The Thinking Man

2008-10-13T13:54:00.004+01:00

He thought a lot of things when he came back from the hospital with his head in a turban of bandages that gave off a steady antiseptic whiff. He thought the staircase that led up to the flat looked narrower, the steps higher. He thought he saw the shadow of feet in the tiny space at the bottom of his neighbour's door. He thought someone was looking at him through the keyhole (he thought he saw an eye blink in the keyhole). He thought of his mother rotting in a cramped coffin, in a crowded cemetry.

He unlocked the door and stepped into the livingroom. He thought it looked the same as it had looked when he had left, and gone out to get a motorcycle accident. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide off his back and unto the floor. He turned on the fan, and sat up in the couch under it. He really wanted to lie down but he knew his head would hurt if he did.

As he sat there listening to his cellphone ring out again and again, the ground thumping beneath his feet, he thought of how tragic it would be if the whistling ceiling fan were to drop from its hook and slice his head off untidily –thuck.thuck.thuck- with its dusty, blunt blades. That situation would be beyond doctors and bandages. he wondered if headless corpses, and corpseless heads could get tetanus. He slid off the couch, breaking his fall with his bruised and plastered knees, and crawled to a corner of the room. There, beneath brown cobwebs, he lay down into a dream about his childhood.

His sister returned from her boyfriend's house at 9pm, half-singing, half-humming whatever song was thumping from the flat below theirs.

You are sick, he thought she had said, pointing to his head. But when she repeated the words and giggled, he realised she had said 'Sikh'. She was fond of puns.

'Low wit,' he sneered, tracing the ridges of the bandages with his fingertips to make sure the thing hadn't come undone. He watched her do a little dance, throwing her hands high above her head, and moving her feet in a way he could not. He told her what he thought might happen with the fan.

'Seriously?' as if that was a proper question. As if she should not find a corner for herself, for her safety. She looked up at the fan for a moment, and then fixed him with a stare. Her stupid grin had faded and was being replaced with worry. He watched as she tossed her keys on the coffee-table and began to search her huge handbag for her phone. She found it soon enough.

'Who are you calling?'

'Your doctor.'

'Why?'

She held up a hand and began to speak. Not to him, into the phone.

It was then it occurred to him that there was petrol in the house. Cellphones were not allowed in petrol stations. An explosion was imminent.

Risking decapitation by the ceiling fan, he leapt from his corner and snatched the phone out of his sister's hand just as she was saying something about side effects and paranoia.

'Hey,' she said, but he was already tossing her phone and his out of the window.

'You have totally lost it' she screamed with huge eyes. He thought it might be a pun. Was 'it' one of the cellphones? He stretched an arm and turned off the fan.
His sister had run out of the house like a mad woman, as if her phone could be salvaged. She had lost her head. He smiled and recited the first few lines of his favourite poem If by Rudyard Kipling.

IF you can keep your head when all about
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too...

By the time he flopped down on the couch, his head was throbbing but still safely attached to his shoulders. No doubt.

BASTARD OR NO

2008-09-07T17:15:00.001+01:00

They had to have a proper wedding, with a willing church and with representatives of both families in attendance. They needed a wedding dress adjusted in the middle, bridesmaids who weren't so willowy they'd out the bride, a big bright bouquet, and their game faces.

Of course, for the bride, there would be no spitting, no long naps, no indulging her intermittent cravings for strange-yet-edible things, and no bilious palavers with the groom on the day about whose fault what was. The groom would even wear the lacy white gloves without a protest murmured or otherwise.

The prayers-for those in the know-that the couple stay together would be earnest. The prayers that they be blessed with the fruit of the womb would be redundant in a way, and deserving of mortal strikes of thunder in another.

The ceremony would be somewhat dull, almost anemic. A lot of their friends and acquaintances, mostly those from their church, would not attend, either because they weren't invited, or because they had declined the invite with tactless tact and eyes-to-the-ground politeness.

The feelings of the couple which cannot be described in words, would be glimpsed for years after in the wedding photos; behind the grim smiles, in the stiffness and care of the body language, in the abscence of the bride's father, and in a lot of little things present and amiss.

The couple would go off on a honeymoon, to a friend's house not far from the groom's. There would be no coupling on that very night. The honeymoon would segue into the gravest months of the wife's ante-natal torment and after the birth, the new mother would return to her parents' house.

The husband would visit often, accompanied by his people to try and sort out the balance of the bride price which seemed to have swollen in inverse proportion to the wife's belly.

The husband would complain at some point that his wife, and his child were being held hostage. He would even go as far as mentioning the words ransome and militants in reference to the requested sum, and his new in-laws respectively. The wife's people would fail to find humour in this, not in those times, not in Port Harcourt.

Their annoyance would eventually be financialized so that the husband (or potential in-law as the wife's younger brother was fond of saying) would have an even greater bill to offset.

After a final amount had been agreed upon and contributed by the groom, his family, and his drinking buddies who had organized themselves into a pro-active Committee of Friends, the new mother and her newborn would move into the groom's 2-bedroom apartment in his father's BQ.

Their lives together would begin and continue with a lot of bitterness and regret. The husband would spend a few years applying for jobs he would never get. He would also become a vicious wife beater, sending his wife to the hospital on too many occassions. He would, at the age of 38, became a prolific marijuana inhaler, and a philosopher of the slurred, incoherent kind. He would eventually land a cosy political appointment courtesy one of the members of his Committee of Friends. He would compensate for his long abscences with even more frequent beatings, and with even harsher words during their routine verbal jousts.

The wife would forget her ambition to become a doctor. She would bury it along with other things planned and desired in the past. She would forever associate her singing voice with the turbulent, never-ending scene that her life had become. She would hardly ever sing. She would hear stories of how other girls in the choir had been seduced by her NowHusband in his role as the ThenChoirmaster. She would come to the conclusion that she was the one stupid enough to get pregnant for him, and stay that way. She would also believe sometimes, in the middle of their troubles, that God was punishing her for the sin they had committed practically in His temple.
They would have another child, a girl. The wife would think of running away with the children, and starting afresh in a new town. The husband would dote on their daughter. This attention would make his wife and son very jealous. He would call his daughter his dearest princess. For his son, he had only one name, one word.

He would matter-of-factly call his son Bastard.

Mother Love

2008-07-11T14:11:00.011+01:00

They’ll love you in L.A Mum, I just know it. The City of Angels will finally have a genuine piece of the divine. You will get an agent, and a trainer, and a bunch of lawyers and a business manager and a publicist. You will get a personal assistant and bodyguards and a personal stylist. You will have an accountant and a yoga coach and a number of charities you support. You will be a celebrity.

You will go on the Oprah show and talk about how great it is to hit the limelight after 50, and you and Oprah and the one billion or so women watching will have half a dozen Aha! Moments and then you’ll sing. You will teach Martha Stewart how to cook an African dish on National TV. Please Mum, keep it simple. Fry dodo, or if you must cook soup, let it be egusi. Oh, and small balls of eba for the swallowing Mum, small balls for the swallowing.

You will move into a big house with a pool and a history. You will remodel the house and reinvent yourself. Inspite of your strongest urges, you will become a vegan. You will finally lose the weight you gained from bearing three strong sons, and from gathering for yourself the largest chunks of meat and fat from every dish you cooked. You will live on the treadmill until you are thin enough to jog on the beach with your trainer and your bodyguards, and the paparazzi.

You will get a famous yogi-to-the-stars and dabble actively in Pilates. You will do your best to get your body in its best shape Mum, and then you will use other procedures to add and subtract as you see fit. But all things in moderation. do not forget Kanye's mother and our very own Stella. I trust you will exercise your judgement as you always have. And don't worry, there are surgeons who can be counted on to do a good job on the down low, very hush hush. They say discretion is the better part of L.A.

Hehehehehehe.

Even though you are an L.A-based celebrity, you will not forget Nigeria Mum. You will speak of the country of your birth with nostalgia, but not too much. Measured wistfulness, Mum. You will romanticize your childhood: the 10 mile, barefoot journey to school, your struggling mother, your days in the village choir, especially Sunday services when you would unfailingly bring the entire congregation of quasi-heathens to tears with your gospel solos. Mention as often as you can how grateful you are to be in the Land of the Free. Stay away from those Naija people in Houston. They are bad news. Speak favourably of Nigeria, but do nothing to shatter Western myths of impoverished Sub-Saharan Africa; the junkyard of pity, and aid. The bastion of famine, and conflict, and AIDS.

You Mum, will be the continent’s brightest export, brighter even than blood diamonds.

You will take a leaf from Hip-hop. You will ‘have a beef’ with an established and successful female singer, preferably black. I would have suggested Whitney Houston but it would be a waste of time. In short, forget all the African American singers. Forget Mariah, forget Diana, forget Patti, never mind Mary J. and don’t even think an uncomplimentary thought about Tina or Beyonce. You do not want to offend Oprah (way too powerful), and Jay-Z has been known to stab people.

Call out Makeba (for her perpetual mama-ness), or Sade (for her irritating sultriness), or Kidjo (for her suspicious man-ishness, and also for that nasty haircut) -in short, whoever has an album that’s showing up on the charts. If you go to France, be sure to say something really mean about Asa. If you are in London, try and record a song with Amy Winehouse, but make sure Mark Ronson produces it, and keep a bodyguard and a can of pepperspray close. That girl can be a handful. Then when you are safely back across the pond, tell a magazine or E! Entertainment news how horrible it was working with Amy.

Beef can do wonders for careers. Just go to Lagos and ask Ruggedman, that's if he's not in London performing. Don't listen to that crazy Afeni Shakur and Marsha Wallace telling sob stories they've been telling for many many decades. Since the 90's.

Then there will be Vegas and Broadway. I can see it now: your being approached to have your own reality show. We'll have giraffes and Zebras on the lawn, and there'll be constant bickering among us, your sons. Who knows, you may be seeing a nice gentleman at the time, and maybe we'll lety him feature on the show as well. Whatever you do in L.A. Mum, don't act like Mariah Carey and have a marrige that will be an embarassment to your boys. Don't carry on like Hulk Hogan's wife or Ivana Tramp.

We'll be instant stars, all of us. But first you'll have to get the Network to talk U.S Immigration into forgiving my past deportations and letting me back into the country. I look forward to my first authentic U.S visa.

I will tell you more later Mum. But you better believe it. Your time, our time has come. I guess all that tithing and praying and fasting has finally paid off. I hope you renewed your pasport as I told you to months ago. I swear on my mother's life, mum. They'll absolutely love you in L.A.

I Too Have Fought For CHANGE

2008-05-20T16:52:00.004+01:00

My surname ain’t Obama
But I too have fought for change
Been the villain in a five-minute drama
A physical role which for me was strange

It was at the end of a bus ride
From Mile One to the old town
I got my money on the upside
And lost my temper on the down

The fare was hiked to fourty naira
I grudgingly gave a 50 note
This was 2 minutes before the conductor
Felt my strong arm grip his throat

Gi' me my 10 card im no gree
The small boy been dey waste my time
I don see im whole strategy
No be me im go use take shine

I haven’t told this tale to my mama
I have a feeling it’d make her ashamed
But even though my name isn’t Obama
I too have fought for change

YY

2008-05-18T17:23:00.007+01:00

children on the net

The hook up seemed a lot like a set up. It’s not that I didn’t like the girl or that in those days of receding innocence and overwhelming pubescence, I hadn’t lusted after her more than once. The problem was that I hadn’t told anyone I liked her, but here I was, being urged by my friend Osa to ask her out. I felt invaded. How could Osa, the most insensitive of God’s creatures possibly have knowledge of a thing that I had buried so deep? Was it so obvious? Had he made me talk in my sleep? It was the sort of thing he could do, after all he used to go around the hostel on some nights, covered in a white bed sheet, fastidiously applying Close-Up toothpaste to the eyelids of sound asleep, then he would slap them out of their slumber and watch as the toothpaste got into their eyes. As they lay there writhing in pain and screaming screams that reverberated throughout the building, he’d run off, a malevolent, cowardly wraith in the night. The next morning he’d gleefully tell me about the ‘painful sight’. That was the kind of person Osa was.

I was also suspicious because YY, the girl in question, was Osa’s cousin. We were all in JSS 2, but in different arms. If Osa was a rabid, untamable beast, then YY was the opposite- quiet and kind, but with a sense of humour and a certain glint in her eye that rumoured a capacity for great mischief. Sometimes she’d come to talk to her cousin when he and I were standing together, and we’d exchange a hello and no more. She was slim in a way that suggested she’d grow up to be a tall woman. She was beautiful even then. Of course that was a time when few of the girls had curves of any kind. They were straight in their housewears, and even straighter in their pinafores. A couple of unfulfilled lumps on their chests declared their femininity and promised a future harvest of womaness. But at that time we didn’t care. Some girls of course, were already somewhat developed. At those ones, we sniggered and behind their backs we called them old, and maybe really lusted after them. YY was as beautiful as an 11 year old could be, and even though we barely spoke, I wanted her, or wanted to be a part of her, or something.

Osa was always on my case. I know you like that girl. You had better go ahead and ask her out before someone else will. She has already turned three guys down this term. That was how encouraging Osa could be. I’d feign disinterest and question his motives. I know you like her. She’s my cousin and you are my friend. Again I’d deny, and then I’d ask him if she liked me. Ask her out, and then you’ll know. The thing was getting more and more dodgy. I swore to myself that I’d never make the foolish mistake of asking her out. Knowing Osa, it may well have been an elaborate prank designed to humiliate me. But still I wondered if she had told him she liked me and would want to go out with me.

Back then going out meant little more than holding hands and taking walks with your girlfriend or boyfriend during sports time, occasionally hanging out and sharing snacks at break periods, getting furtive hugs, and if you were really daring maybe even kisses once in a while behind some hedge. It meant writing love letters during night-prep, and finding creative ways to courier the letter from one prep hall to the other without it falling into the wrong hands. Personally, I wasn’t too big on the whole going out thing. I was the cynical kid who spent his night preps writing love letters for people in exchange for cash, or canned food.

Fast forward to a Christmas Carol Night we were having. I was standing with Osa in front of a choir which featured some of our friends. Osa was trying-with some success- to distract them by making silly faces. I was bored and sleepy. Next thing I know, YY sidles up next to her cousin. They start talking; I pretend to be interested in the choir, anything to avoid her gaze (assuming of course, that she’s actually gazing at me). Moments later, Osa grabs me and says we should go somewhere quieter. I have no choice in the matter, but there are alarm bells going off in my head. We get to a spot behind the crowds. He tells YY I have something to ask her, and then he disappears into the crowd no doubt to do even more mischief somewhere else.

My heart is pounding. Indecision, anger, weakness, fear, excitement, everything. A few yards away the choir is singing Glory, glory, Hallelujah!

It occurs to me that Osa is an inglorious bastard.

YY stands there, looking at me. Her left foot is playfully digging into the grass, her long, pretty arms are folded across her almost-flat chest. The Christmas lights bathe her in a soft stream as my awkward seconds tick away. Finally she cocks her head to the left, raises an eyebrow and says so?
I respond with a huh, or something equally lame, and then I try to seize the moment.

From the second the words start coming out of my mouth, I know I’m on the inexorable journey towards asking her out. I can’t remember what I said, but I must have spoken for about three minutes. An unnecessary, boring speech with the phrase 'I’d like us to go out' worked in somewhere near the end. I finish, feeling stupid, and manipulated. I make another empty personal vow to kill Osa. She has been watching me throughout my ordeal with as much expression as the famous Benin mask. She let’s me hang for a few moments more then she opens her mouth, and with her braces glinting menacingly in the light, she gives the orthodox response ‘I’ll think about it’ (or ‘I shink aboushit’ as I vengefully narrate to Osa later that night). At that moment, I’m not sure I like her anymore. I even wonder if I suddenly hate her. I have no doubt that she will return some days later with a big NO. I will be the fourth boy denied that term.

Two days later, she sends word: we may go out. By then I don’t know how to feel. That afternoon we spend sports time together, walking around (but not holding hands), and conversing in fits and starts. By that evening everybody knows we are going out. Osa urges me to send her a love letter. I refuse.

School closes for Christmas that same week. Over the holidays we talk over the phone a few times, and I get to start liking her again. By the time we resume in January, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her. Her braces still make me uncomfortable, and I almost ask her if they’ll ever come off.

The removal of her braces is for me, like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Iron Curtain disappears overnight, and East and West come closer. What has metal got to do with passionate pressing together of lips and eager excursions of tongues into previously unexplored mouths? For a while we live bliss. I write her one letter, and no more. She tells Osa to beg me to write her every night. I refuse. In my nightmares, my letters to her are read by the entire Girls’ Hostel and then photocopied, enlarged and pasted on their Notice Board.

Between us, there suddenly rises a wall of grievances unspoken. She sends someone to tell me to try and be like other guys. I send a retort asking if she wants me to start bouncing or sagging. She tries to tolerate me.

The final straw comes on her birthday. The tradition is that when you are going out with a girl, you spend an insane amount of money buying her gifts on her birthday. I simply buy her a box of chocolate and a book of poetry, in it I write that she deserves more words than a Hallmark Card can hold. The gesture does not go down well with her. She thinks I’m being cheap. She sends Osa to tell me she has broken up with me. I’m hurt by her misunderstanding of my gesture, and by this materialistic side she has shown. She immediately starts going out with some guy who bought her three different perfumes.

Many years later, she calls me and asks me to write her a poem. I can only remember the end:

…The next few lines will end this poem
Like a year December will close
My fire for you may be out
But this ember still glows

YY has indeed grown into a tall, beautiful woman and will be getting married to the Three Perfumes Guy this Christmas.

Osa is still alive and still very much an inglorious bastard.

The Table

2008-03-20T11:17:00.002+01:00

Graffiti on the door of the men's room in Kilimanjaro

I sit there, with that part of me I’ve come to think of as my soul grinning. My face, I hope, is mask of calm and sophisticated interest in spite of the ludicrous drama in which I find myself an indifferent actor.

They sit across the table from me, giggling, holding hands, and whispering; generic gestures of an ostensible romance. Occasionally, they toss a comment in my direction, a bit like offal being tossed to Bingo as he paces outside the kitchen door. I play my part in this pleasureless ménage.

I look at him, handsome in his skin, fashionable in his clothes, and secure in his relationship. The leading man of the play, a willing actor, hero to my villain (or perhaps I flatter myself, perhaps mine is no more than a waka-pass role). She is a fitting partner, her beauty providing an undeniable visual complement to his good looks. They are the picture of aesthetic symmetry. Adonis and Venus seated at a table. I wonder what I am doing here with the gods. He is Achilles, she is his fatal heel, and the arrow that kills him again and again, lies idly, for the moment at least, between my legs. Did not Lord Byron say something about beauty being a fatal gift?

We all met here by fate. I had time to kill while waiting for a deposit to come through at the bank. I walk into the nearest restaurant, and there they are, on a lunch date. Fate. The gods who manipulate us like pieces on a chess board are not without humour. He: the rightful boyfriend, the king, legal resident of the castle. Me: the intruder, a modern day Sir Lancelot who is only just realizing that there is a King Arthur, and I’m meeting him here for the first time at this square table. In my defense, I will say that I was not aware until this very moment that she had a boyfriend. In her defense, she will probably claim that I never asked. Ask and ye shall receive. She attends church twice a week.

I’ve known her for a few weeks. We go out a couple of times and then the physical intimacy thing kicks in. We start gbenshing. It’s not just the sex though, we have great conversations. Her beauty belies her brains. Thing is, we never talk about the prospect of getting into a relationship. It’s the unspoken.

We’re sitting together on the couch one day watching TV, when she turns to me and accuses me of ‘looking smug these days’ .I shake my head. She insists, and then sighs, murmuring something about men and conquest. I chuckle, and tell her that conquest is Edmund Hilary getting to that summit, not us climaxing on the rug.

She giggles, and mounts me, yet another taste of that succulent fruit. We go on like this for a month, our trysts increasing in frequency, that fruit becomes my staple, and yet we remain, at least in my mind, friends. One day she asks me if I feel jealous about her. This is one question girls inevitably ask. It is a test of how possessive a man feels about them. It is supposed to be an indication of where the man thinks they are in the relationship. It is a gentle tug at the leash (if any), a testing of the bounds, of expectations of exclusivity, and of the acceptability of flirtation. It is a dubious question. I do not answer; instead I make a joke about no one wanting to plead guilty to any of the seven deadly sins. Nice try, she says ‘But, I’m sure you know the difference between jealousy and envy.’
So anyway, I walk into the restaurant, and my eyes immediately fall upon them. I’m more impressed than I am surprised. They look good together. She sees me in that brief moment in which I’m trying to decide whether or not to walk up to them. I see a flash of panic in her eyes, but it lasts for just a nanosecond. Then she gets up and calls out, as though she saw me first. I give her full marks and walk up. A hug here, a handshake there and an introduction. She calls me her very good friend. She doesn’t lie, probably because thou shall not. He says something about finally getting to meet Porter. I try to leave them and head for another table, but they both scold me. ‘You must sit with us,’ they say. I settle down for the idle chit chat and get a beer while they daintily pick at their food (yes, they even do the whole feeding each other thing). I’m thoroughly amused.

They finish their meal, and it becomes clear we really do not have anything to talk about. He keeps staring suspiciously at my drink. I decide to have some fun. I start smacking my lips with a satisfied ‘aaahhhh!’ after each sip. He’s disgusted but says nothing. She tries to kick me under the table. When the whole thing becomes too awkward, he resorts to the lovey-dovey crap they are currently engaged in.

Thankfully, my phone soon rings. Time to go to the bank, I take one final gulp, stand up, and decide against belching. I say my goodbyes. Another hug and a not so friendly handshake, and I’m gone. As I walk across the street and into the bank premises, my phone beeps. It’s a message from her. I read it
I kno u r angry. I’ll xplain 2nite. xxx

I smile, no I’m not angry, I think to myself, how can I be? I try to think of all the scenarios that could play out tonight when she comes over to explain. I’m pulled roughly out of my reverie by the grating voice of a particularly rude security man at the door of the bank.

‘Oga, wey you! Abeg obey simple in-stroshun. Switch off ya handset’

I belch at him, and then set my phone to vibrate.

Where Was I Going with This?

2008-01-21T15:10:00.000+01:00

Things change in Benin, but then not so much. I come here a few times a year to visit some of my relatives. The ancient city is as stubborn as the even more ancient traditions of the Bini people. The Oba’s palace is a huge, sprawling compound with a land mass that would make any one of Saddam’s infamous palaces feel inadequate. The seat of one of Africa’s most famous Kingdoms is fenced round with the ubiquitous red mud of the Benin. I’m always awed by the length of the side of the fence that runs along Airport Road. It seems to go on forever.

Benin has its mystery which is not unconnected with the inextant traditions of its people in these times. The Chiefs are truly a sight to behold, with their very unique hairstyles, their impeccably white garments and the essential native beads around their necks and on their wrists. The King is officially addressed as The Omo n'Oba n'Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediuwa,Oba of Benin. Personally, I love the title, but that Uku Akpolokpolo part makes me uneasy.

I remember when I was about to come here to start secondary school. Two of my aunts came to our house with the sole intention of warning me of the perils lying in wait in the shadowy, foreign land into which my parents were about to pitch me.

Aunt N: When you go there keep to yourself.

Aunt W: Yes, don’t make friends anyhow.

Aunt N: I know you are inquisitive but it might land you in trouble over there.

Aunt W: Yes o! Curiosity kills the cat.

Aunt N: Of course we are not saying that you will be killed.

Aunt W: Or that you are a cat.

Aunt N: God forbid! That reminds me, beware of cats.

Aunt W: All animals in short. Those people are very fetish. They can change into any creature.

Aunt N: Porter, are you listening?

Aunt W: Listen and learn, we always tell you.

Aunt N: Don’t take food from anyone.

Aunt W: Especially rice. They use what you like to get you.

Aunt N: Don’t give out your clothes.

Aunt W: Yes, very important.

Aunt N: You must take your prayers seriously.

Aunt W: Put your bible under your pillow.

Aunt N: Fast when you can.

Aunt W: Very necessary.

Aunt N: What is making you laugh Porter? Do you think this is funny?

Aunt W: Take heed Porter, take heed.

On and on they went. My wonderful aunts. They still double-team me like that to this day.

Ahem! So back to Benin and its mystery and all that. Juju is not something hidden away in the backyard like some embarrassingly deranged relative. Here, it is real and acknowledged. It sits at the table and takes leisurely strolls around the neighbourhood. The practitioners/adherents of ancient religious traditions perform their rites with as much pride as the Hasids when they observe Hanukkah. It is not unusual to find an odd assortment of things slaughtered and things unidentifiable heaped at some junction early in the morning as sacrifice. There are various traditional religious sects that congregate and worship without any thought for the self-righteous opinions of the rest of our purported Christian/Muslim society.

There was a running joke back when I was in secondary school. It was something to the effect that on the CNN weather forecast, all other major cities in the world were listed thus :

New York 27F

London 42°F

Paris 38°F

Johannesburg 45°F

Rio de Janeiro 52°F

Benin City *

*Weather conditions may change dramatically throughout the day due to obvious forces at work. Please contact your local juju-man or rainmaker for up-to-the minute forecast in that city.

Apparently I wasn’t the only kid from outside Benin who had been warned about the spiritual risks of just being in the city. The Benin boys as expected were not too happy with all the allegations that theirs was a decidedly hyper-fetish tradition, and they were always defensive. Their denials were however contradicted when most fights they got into over whatever ended up with them threatening to go home and 'swear for' their opponent at the shrine of some malevolent-sounding deity.

On one occasion, it suddenly started raining in the middle of a graduation ceremony. Our proprietor, a prominent Benin chief, stood up from the platform where parents and dignitaries were seated and headed toward a secluded corner, brushing away the shelter of an umbrella offered by an eager crony. Legend has it that he went and mouthed some arcane and potent incantations. I don’t know about that. What I know is that by the time he was returning to his high chair at the high table, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. He gained a lot of respect and, I dare say, fear on that day.

We had yet another eventful graduation ceremony a few years later when the erstwhile Military Administrator was invited as the Special Guest of Honour. When it was time to deliver his speech, the Navy Captain stood up and got into an arrogant intellectual rant intended to ridicule the monarch with whom he had a very bitter quarrel at the time. The audience was stunned. Amongst other very irreverent and disparaging comments, the MILAD said he was an intellectual and had read several books on diverse topics including Plasma Physics. He said it was an insult to his fecund intellect to expect him to believe that a human being could turn himself into a bat. He wondered what kind of molecular metamorphosis could permit such a mutation to occur. He went on to express his disdain for such backwardness, such superstition. The skimpily veiled attack almost ruined the entire event. The Benin Kingdom slept uneasily that day.

When the Milad’s wife suffered a miscarriage a few weeks later, the Benin people knew why.

On a less than morbid note, I resorted to calling the MILAD’s son (who-unfortunately for him-was my classmate) Plasma Boy! He hated it.

Speaking of bats, I’ve seen some very unusual activity by the nocturnal birds in these parts. On several occasions what seems like millions of them hover over the palace and around Ring Road. I wonder if there’s a huge bat cave somewhere in that vicinity. Hollywood take note: a good location for research or even a shoot if another Batman movie is in the works. I tink na authenticity dem say dem want?

Amongst the more bizarre things I’ve witnessed (albeit through the medium of the televison) in Benin was the Lovers’ Palaver which occurred a couple of years ago when I was here on a visit. A girl suspected that her boyfriend was cheating on her. To be sure, rather than hire a Private Eye to keep an eye on her lover’s privates, she went to a native doctor and ordered a customized spell. How she applied her designer spell, I don’t know. The fact is that whether via satellite, or the good old sprinkle-on-his-food method, the spell and (indeed the die) was cast. All that was required now was a siddon-look posture.

And so Mr. Loverman, oblivious as my fisherman Uncle in the village is to world oil prices, went about his business and played yet another away match. After the final whistle however, his erection remained. All his attempts to lower his flag were unsuccessful, he couldn’t even achieve half-mast by thinking unpleasant thoughts. Indeed, it was his mother who called in the family native doctor to help find a solution to the perpetual turgidity with which her son had been afflicted. And alas, it was the native doctor who with Sherlockian perspicacity deduced that the spell was from Mr. Loverman’s personal person, his babe, his main squeeze, his…em (I think I’m getting carried away again). ‘Hell hath no fury…’ said the native doctor, quoting Shakespeare in an unmistakably Oxbridge accent. (Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist. This is a true story o! Except for the obviously silly parts).

Anyway, the native doctor immediately asked that the long-suffering girlfriend be summoned. As can be expected, the girl refused to come, and instead sent a message back along the lines of ‘everyday for the thief…’ (Women!! Hah!)

Mr. Loverman spent one hellish night with an unyielding erection even as the native doctor tried his best to help him. By morning, it was clear that the spell was passworded and it was the girl who knew the pin code. Again they begged her but she continued to spurn all entreaties. Eventually, the boy had to go to the palace and plead his case (this is where the newscameras got in on the whole thing) even though the problem was clear to everyone. The palace then summoned the girl, and got her to temper justice with mercy and give the guy a break for crying out loud (italics and sympathetic opinion are mine). The guy was full of remorse and gratitude when they emerged from the Palace. He promised to be a stand up guy from then on. The girl was sulking and unwilling to oblige the journalists with any sound bites.

I think it’s pretty obvious that this post has veered way off course. Make I end am here. I can’t even remember what I set out to blog about. Anyway, I’m in Benin sleeping, eating, watching TV, and making the most of all that ‘oh-so-you-won’t-go-to-lawschool-until-September’ sympathy. I’m also giving my liver a bit of a break and rediscovering the music of The Cranberries and Tracy Chapman.

We go yan.

What to Do

2007-12-18T16:39:00.000+01:00

I've been busy with my classmates, fighting to get admitted into lawschool. Thing is, we'd already been offered admission, but our evil Acting Dean decided to send the results of just some of the people in our class to lawschool. Those guys have been at their various campuses having lectures for almost a month. We on the other hand, have had to struggle to make him send our results to Abuja. He finally did, long after the deadline. The result? about 200 qualified law graduates have to wait almost an entire year. It's annoying. I hear the Acting Dean now has police protection. God help him!

The Struggle as we refer to it, is now practically over. We celebrate our small victories and hope that the wounds will soon phase into scars. there's been a lot of strategizing. An unlikely bunch of classmates thrown together by a common challenge. I'm now friends with people i never spoke to in all the 6 years i spent in that faculty. there has been a lot of bitterness confessedas well as a lot of beer consumed. there've been anecdotes from the time spent chasing that LLB degree. there's the guy who 'toasted' the most wicked female lecturer when he was in year 2. He claims he'd thought she was a student because of her very nice legs. He developed cold feet for Madam Hot Legs when someone told him who she was. He never called her, even though she had given him her number. the next time she saw him, she yelled "I don't like being disappointed!". He, on his part, prostrated and begged her to forgive him for ever coming on to her.

Now I have a year to fill, but I'm too exhausted to evaluate my options. I feel like I need to sleep for a long time, even my body aches. I got a call from my cousin she wants me to 'come to Lagos and hustle'. I'm not even sure what that means. My sister thinks I should travel, but she's not very clear on whether she'll be willing to bankroll such a trip. My mother called me last night.

"What are you doing now Porter?"

"Nothing."

"When are you coming home for Christmas?"

"As soon as my girlfriends release me."

She chuckles uncomfortably, not sure if I'm serious.

"Well, don't keep us waiting for too long."

"Ok."

"Have you thought of what you'll do next year?"

"I'll find something to do. Maybe learn Spanish or something. I might even blog"

"What's that?"

I explain.

"I thought you wanted to be a writer? This blogging thing sounds like a compromise."

"Okay."

"I hate it when you do that Porter."

"Sorry."

"Anyway, take care out there. Don't do anything that..."

The network rudely interrupts. Service is down again. I try to call her back, but I can't get a connection. I sit back and try to think of what I'll do in the coming year. My mind yawns. I'm having unpleasant flashbacks to that nasty episode with Punishment. I lie down and hope to wake up in 2008.

Porter: A Brief History of Treason

2007-11-10T18:06:00.000+01:00

I remember quite clearly when I was about 6 or 7, I got thoroughly scolded by my eldest sister for not keeping my room tidy. As she was leaving the room, I made a rude gesture (I show her waka) and she just so happened to turn around at that moment. She saw my hand mid-air, palm facing her, fingers extended, and a defiant look on my face. She came back and gave me a memorable beating. After that, I made it a policy to keep my rude gestures mental and unseen to the human eye.

There was another incident not too long after that. I had just emerged from the toilet. My sister called out from downstairs

‘Porter, what is that horrible smell?’

“Smell? I can’t smell anything”

“What do you mean you can’t smell anything? Did you just use the toilet?”

“Yes, but it didn’t even smell, and I flushed”

Next thing I knew, my sister was bounding up the stairs, handkerchief tied over her nose and mouth. In her right hand, a loaded canister of some lilac airfreshner, in her left, a can of Raid. I’ve never been able to figure out what the Raid was for…to kill germs? To further suppress the (imagined) stench? To prevent flies from finding ground zero? She began to spray away the moment she saw me in front of my room. I had to get out of the way.

She sprayed generously from both cans all the way to the bathroom, and then she went postal when she got inside it. I reckon she must have emptied both cans in there. After that, she ordered me to go and take a bath in my father’s bathroom.

“You’d better scrub yourself very well because I will inspect”

I was angry, and I contemplated another rude gesture but the memory of the last beating was still too fresh and raw in my mind and so I did as the dictator had ordered.

I got my chance for revenge a few days later. I waited until my sister had gone into the toilet one evening and then I took a can of Raid and started spraying away outside the door.

“Who is that?” she called out, startled. I kept quiet and went on spraying.

“I say who is there? Porter?”

“Yes, aunty” (she made us call her aunty in those days. Such was her tyranny)

“Porter what’s going on there?”

“Nothing aunty”

“What is that sound? What are you spraying?”

“I smelled something. I think there’s a dead rat around here. I’m spraying Raid because of the smell, and to kill the insects that will be looking for the rat”

She kept quiet for a while and then she said “you evil child, you had better leave that place before I come out and descend on you. In short, go and kneel down in my room and wait for me”

I was standing covering my mouth with one hand, trying not to laugh out loud. As I turned to go and observe my punishment, I couldn’t resist one final spray. There is no need to recount what happened when she came out of the toilet that day. But let’s just say that I didn’t receive any presents from my sister/aunty the following Christmas.

A couple of years later, my father’s lady friend found a note inside her car after one of her numerous overnight visits. The note was scribbled on a plain sheet of paper. Its message was simple, and the lettering was large and quite legible. It read:

GO AWAY YOU STUPID WOMAN. WE HATE YOU.

She almost fainted when she saw it. My father was not at home, and so she went upstairs to his study and began pacing until he got back. Downstairs, there was a buzz, we weren’t quite sure what had happened, we could only speculate.

After about 10 minutes, my father summoned the household to his study. He told us what had happened. The lady sat quietly, glaring at my older brother and me with hateful eyes. My father then began to narrow down the list of suspects. The cook had been busy all day, besides she was very fond of Madam. The gateman couldn’t write a single alphabet even if his life depended on it. Our cousins had just come from the village the previous day, and they could not have formed an opinion about the lady in so short a time. And so it went until the only two people standing in the study and facing the hateful gaze of the woman and the certain justice of my father were my brother and I.

My father then asked us to go and bring our school notebooks. After some handwriting analysis, my brother was fingered as the culprit. My father said even though he had ‘tried to be clever’ by changing the way he constructed his letters, his W’s were unchanged. My brother would be grounded for a week. He would write a letter of apology, in his original handwriting, to the lady, and wash her car whenever she came (and slept over). I thought I was off the hook until my father turned to me and said

“Porter, I notice the note says ‘we hate you’. I can only imagine that you and your brother had agreed on this”

“No, I didn’t…”

“Sharrap!” he barked, and then he went on. “You will also write a letter of apology”. With that, he dismissed us. I went to my room and even as my brother was biting the top of his biro, agonizing over what to write, I wrote a very brief letter that went something like this

Dear Aunty,
I am writing to apologise for the note you found in your car today. I am sorry that somebody in this house does not like you. I don’t know the person, but I would like the person.

The lady was furious when she read this. She took the note to my father and he summoned me once again. He read it aloud to me and asked me what I meant by ‘I would like the person’

“Oh!” I exclaimed, feigning surprise “It’s a mistake, I meant to say I would like to find the person”

“It’s a lie!” the woman screamed.

My father asked her to calm down and let him handle it.

“Now look here Porter, I know you are trying to be very clever. I am now convinced you were the brains behind that note even though your brother was the one who foolishly wrote it. You will go and write another letter of apology, this time without any mistakes. You are also banned from watching TV for a week.” I thought I saw just the slightest hint of a smile playing on my father's lips.

With that, he sent me away. He knew he had given me a very painful punishment. I still like to think that my father was somewhat amused by my treachery. He wasn’t a humourless man, and in his youth, he’d been a bit a rascal. There were rumours that he’d been the leader of a group that burned the blackbook back when he was in secondary school. I think he was secretly proud of my naughtiness.

As for his lady friend, she became very paranoid and she was always on our case from then onwards. However, about a year later, she had a major falling out with my father and the day she left, my brother and I were smiling broadly and waving mockingly as we opened the gate for her to drive out of our lives.

From Sugar to Shit in Just a Bit

2007-10-30T09:10:00.000+01:00

She visits. We hug, and then kiss. We sit down to talk. We laugh and play. Our love is bliss. I say something. She misunderstands. I joke about it, she overreacts. I shrug, she curses. I yell at her, she yells back. I ignore her, she screams. I grab a beer, she hits me. I sip my beer and watch the TV. She sits on the bed and starts to sob. I turn off the TV and try to hold her. She pushes me away and curls up on her own. I try again, and fail again. I sigh, and sip my beer. Her cell phone rings. She wipes her eyes, and answers with the breathless hello she usually reserves for me. I turn on the TV and try to focus. Her whispered words distract me so. She soon sits up and cuddles a pillow. The call lingers, ands soon she laughs. I look at her, she turns away. Her whispers drop an octave. She giggles again, and leaves the room. I hear her lock the bathroom door. My jealous hearts quickens pace. My state of mind is insecure. Giggles and laughter are all I hear. They make her happy. I wonder who. When give her pain is all I seem to do. From across the door I listen in. I hear the smile in her happy hum. She comes out soon and stares at me. I’m leaving you, I hear her say. She knocks the sunshine out of my day. I sit on the floor and close my eyes. Something deep within me dies.

THE BACK

2007-10-13T15:03:00.000+01:00

Gaze upon his back

Not so proud
But strong

Too often bent in subservience
With more stripes
Than the zebra in the Safari

The crimson welts
Are now Stygian scars

His eternal scowl
Began as a frequent wince

His anger is rooted
In his pain

His roots are watered
By his hate

His hate flows
From his past

His past
Has made his back

Not so proud

But strong

The Chase and the Chapel

2007-09-27T15:06:00.000+01:00

We crouch in the grass, hoping somehow that the wild green blades will camouflage our gleaming white t-shirts. Location: School farm. Punishment points to a row of yams.

‘I planted those’

‘Shut up!’ I grunt, eyes intently scanning the road that runs between the hostel and the classroom buildings.

There is no sign of our pursuers. A big soldier ant makes an irregular dash across my toes. In panic, I kick off my palm slippers and stamp my feet trying to get him off before he strikes. Punishment laughs, I scowl. Somewhere to the left, just off the road, there’s a rustling sound. I just manage to pick up my slippers. The chase is on again.

Mr. Akin is the vice-principal and the most dreaded member of staff. He is our main pursuer and tormentor-in-chief this fine Saturday morning. Punishment is my friend and a total idiot. Twice suspended, never remorseful. He has a rap sheet as long as Fela’s discography (oh, and he’s been caught smoking and selling Fela’s favourite herb on more than one occasion). The reason for his nickname is a no-brainer.

Now, before you start thinking that us two gentlemen are being chased because we were spliffing, I’ll have you know that Porter did nothing of the sort. Thing is, we are being chased because we want to go and write our first JAMB exam. Honest.

We run. Out of the farm, back onto the side of the road, I look back. Mr. Akin and a security man are jogging about 50 yards back. Up ahead, the classroom buildings are drawing nearer. Punishment is keeping up. He has a silly grin on his stupid face. We hear the sound of a car. We look back to see Mr. Akin and his foot soldier jumping into one of the school’s pick-up trucks. This is so unfair. We run faster.

We dive under the stands around the tennis courts to catch our breaths and re-strategize. JAMB starts in less than an hour. I tell Punishment that the bag which holds our exam slips, materials, and contraband mufti clothes are hidden in the upper floor of the school chapel.

‘Take your things and leave mine in the bag’ I tell him in between my panting and peeping to see if Mr. Akin is already creeping up on us.

‘I’ll circle the primary school block and go for the bag’

He nods. ‘See you after the exam’

Our exam centers are different. The whole point of this cat and mouse game is to avoid going to our exam centers in the school bus, wearing the school uniform. More than a few of us have decided that we’ll go on our own to our exam centers, in our own clothes, and then find our way back to the fortress that is our school, after the exam. Mr. Akin got wind of the plan, no doubt through one of his many spies. Many of the boys have been rounded up and have been dispatched in the school bus. Punishment and I are just part of a handful of us still on the lamb, and now Mr. Akin is after us. We face serious er…punishment, especially now that we’ve made him chase us so hard.

We split up. I head towards the kiosks, and then up the stairs of the nursery section. I stay close to the walls, and listen for footsteps. After about ten minutes, I cautiously plot my way towards the chapel, saying a silent prayer of forgiveness to God for using His house to facilitate my disobedience. I enter the heavy oak doors in a hurry. The chapel of course is empty, I jog between the pews and then up the stairs to the empty room where the bag is hidden. Punishment should have taken his things by now. I stand on an empty paint bucket, reach up and push a loose ceiling board aside then but my hand into the dark space. The bag should be right…NOTHING!

A cold sweat breaks out all over my body suddenly. I search frantically within that dark foreboding space that now seems as bleak and unfortunate as my future is beginning to seem. Nothing. Still nothing.

I crumple on the floor, and try to think. My t-shirt dims. Punishment, you stupid bastard. How could you take the bag? My exam slip, my materials, my clothes. I try to remember his exam centre. I can’t. Outside I hear the sound of the pick-up truck patrolling, looking for me. I get up and head back downstairs.

The fence is not far. I scale it with more ease than I ever have. On the other side is a filling station. One of the securitymen approaches me but then thinks better of it when he sees my face. I get on the road and flag down an okada. I start my futile journey. Heading from one school to another, looking for Punishment, I do not know his centre or even his exam number. After visiting about eight centres in the large city that probably has hundreds of centres, I decided to go to my own. The exam is already underway. I have no form of identification, no idea of my exam number, nothing. They won’t let me write in spite of the very touching story I concoct. It’s hopeless.

I hang around for a while, begging. They can’t help me. I think about all the repercussions that are bound to come. Regret is that gloating enemy who wants to be in your face all the time.

I head back to school, and enter the same way I left. I'm probably the only S.S. 3 student in school at that particular moment. I fall on my bed and intothat deep, peaceful sleep that is God's gift to the troubled and helpless.

When I wake up hours later, the first thing I see is Punishment's face. He's grinning, the smug bastard. He looks like regret. I ask him very calmly why he did what he did. His grin disappears. He didn't know until just then that my exam slip was in the bag. He had wanted to play a prank so I'd have to go and write the exam wearing a t-shirt and my school trousers. He is truly sorry. I tell him it's okay. It's JAMB, I'll write it next year. I fall back on my bed and sleep. This time, my slumber is not so peaceful.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SERIALIZED

2007-09-13T14:36:00.000+01:00

The Revolution will not be serialized
The Revolution will not ask you to watch out for part two
The Revolution will not have Stella crying, or Pete blinking, or Ramsey squinting
The Revolution will not have a NAFDAC number
And yet Dora will be unable to seize it or burn it
The Revolution will not be privatized by the B.P.E
So the Atikus, Dangotes, and Obasanjos can forget about owning it

The Revolution will not be monetized or be the subject of due process
The Revolution will not be redenominated so it reads like this “REVLUTIN”
The Revolution will not be announced by INEC or contested at tribunals
The Revolution will not be renovated for #682M or for any amount whatsoever
The Revolution will not be imported, adulterated and sold in jerry cans in street corners

The revolution will not be announced by a general
The Revolution will not be Newsline material
The Revolution will not be kidnapped and released for ransome
The Revolution will not lose network service, or be unable to connect to its servers
The Revolution will not be swept away by a broom, shaded by an umbrella, or forced to eat corn
The Revolution will not do the yahoozey, the suo or even galala
The Revolution will not be a contract, abandoned midway, or poorly done

The Revolution will not be made right by loaded Ghana-must-go bags
The Revolution will not pause for a public holiday or be held up in traffic so a big man’s convoy can pass
The Revolution will not need foreign investors
The Revolution will not be the brainchild of so-called academics and self-absorbed professors
The Revolution will not be marketed abroad by Andrew Young
And celebrated in Nigeria with a Yerima dance and song

The revolution will not be monitored by a government task force
The Revolution will not have a green passport
The Revolution is not imminent, it can’t be felt in the air
The Revolution will not happen in Nigeria
No, not now and certainly not here

**profuse apologies to Mr. Gil Scott-Heron for his groundbreaking poem, THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED.

PORT HARCOURT: an exaggerated account

2007-08-22T12:33:00.000+01:00

Don’t ask me why I haven’t updated my blog, or patched the sole of my shoe, or finished my project, or been to see my lovely grandparents. Just listen to those increasingly familiar sounds outside. The crickets are quiet, in their stead, the rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons, the worrisome whir of helicopters, the wailing of the innocent on his knees about to be executed.

What is terror?

Ask my tailor who used to live in Marine Base, he is lucky to be alive. Homeless, bruised, no more shop, no Butterfly sewing machines, no angry customers screaming at him that the traditional wedding is tomorrow, and that the etubo must be sewn by tonight. He’s lucky to be alive. Marine base is a ghost town. My aunt and her ‘battalion’ are now refugees in some relative’s house. The militants have retreated into the ever-welcoming creeks, the innocents have fled their modest homes, and even the fish in the area have gone off in search of less-troubled waters (I haven’t had a half-decent plate of fresh fish peppersoup in weeks). The soldiers man the streets. Fierce, unyielding, foreign. They make us raise our hands as we pass. They whip women for sport, and savage boys for show. The streets are littered with bodies and bullet-casings. Blood flows into the stagnant gutters, trying, but failing to clot.

What is peace?

Over here on this side of the city, we are a bit more fortunate. We go to sleep hoping that those gunshots are loud rather than near. We pray the girl screaming in agony as the soldiers rape her is not a friend, or worse, a sister. The explosions rattle our buildings and our bodies. Bravery becomes a sentimental concept. We wake up, shrug off the rubble, cough dust, and get on. The grass is greener here, they say.

What is sleep?

The curfew adds to the chaos. The ashewos are cheaper and desperate. The brothels do brisk business between morning and evening. The soldiers have their pleasure on the house. At 6pm the okadas stop running, at 7pm the soldiers start shooting…go ahead, make their night. The night spots are ruined. We keep away from the windows and walk bending forward. We make love whenever we can, on the floor, and with the heated passion of people who know that tomorrow is a big-maybe. Le petit mort as the French say. The little death. Many petit morts before the big mort.

What is death?

The city that was once garden is now full of wreaths. First were the inexplicable killings-armed gangs coming out in broad daylight and killing regular folk, you and I. For a week, in virtually every part of this metropolis, the guns rang out and we cowered in fear.

What is courage?

On Sunday the twelfth I was on an okada, zipping along, wind in my hair and all that. I got to a certain junction, and was told to get off, raise my hands, and walk all the way to the other side. I wasn’t alone. We were legion. No one knew that soldiers had been drafted into our city. We were shocked and yet submissive. Vehicles also had to offload their human cargo. We all walked, hands raised, to the other side. In the middle of the road, three soldiers with body armor, and long guns fitted with bayonets were dancing to Fela’s Unknown Soldier booming out of the speakers of an empty beer parlour. The irony, the frigging irony. So eerie, so messed up. Porter with hands raised, shaking his head and sighing. This is still Port Harcourt right?

What is dignity?

They say the hunt is on for the militants/cultists/kidnappers. I fit the profile: male, indigenous, with a great appetite for fish, and a village in the creeks. What else do they need? I’m old enough to carry a gun, detonate explosives, and kidnap whitemen and little children. I’m who they want. Some people say I should cut my hair. Apparently an afro can earn you a whipping. The military checkpoints are unavoidable in some parts. The last time I did this much hand-raising, I was in secondary school. Can I complain? In some parts they make you frog-jump, or roll in mud. I stay within my neighbourhood. Porter de Harqourt besieged in a small obscure section of his kingdom. At i night i fall asleep. In my dream, Osama sends me an sms:

we r brothrs, Portr. u&i r kin. huntd, pinnd dwn, h8d. me in these mntains u in ur room. we r brothrs u&i

What is freedom?

I see Miss X, in the evening walking past the shop where I’m trying to buy a recharge card. We’ve been eyeing each other for weeks. I decide to make a move now. Life is too short…these days especially. I call out to her, she stops. Hesitantly it seems, but girls are actors. I ask her if she’s in a hurry. Sorta, she says. I tell her I’d like for her to sorta slow down. Why, she asks. Because, I say, because it’s already past 6 pm and I’d love to spend my curfew getting to know her. She tries to suppress the smile, but she can’t, so she bends her head and pretends to look at her watch. She lifts her head and repeats the words. Because I’d love to spend my curfew getting to know you. She’s beaming. She takes my hand and we head for her room. On the way she asks if that was a line. I say maybe. By 7pm we are better acquainted. At 7pm, the soldiers at the junction fire warning shots to signal the beginning of the curfew. Her fingers dig into my back.

What is pleasure? What is pain?

Gulder and Guilt

2007-08-01T10:19:00.000+01:00

u wit ur goldn bubblz and fabulous froth

i luv u dear Gulder, i luv u a lot!

It’s the beginning of the second half. Arsenal are two goals up and yet piling relentless pressure on their opponents. I feel good. This one is in the bag surely. I take another sip of Gulder. Bentico, my Arsenal-hating Chelsea-loving friend is a lot more sober than he was in the first half. Between puffs of his cancer stick, he tries to explain away his pre-game prophesy. He puts it down to ‘luck’, the opponents aren’t playing at their best, their main striker is having domestic problems, the planets didn’t align properly, blah blah blah! As he reaches for the suya, I ask him if he’d like some crow with that. The girls giggle. He calls me a smug bastard. I accept.

Someone, Tari I think, is playing footsies with me under the table. I look at her across the table. She sips her baileys with feigned naiveté, and then throws me the briefest of glances over her glass. Tari is my ex-girlfriend and we ran into her and her cousin Ama at this spot. I wonder what this is about. But I’m not complaining.

Van Persie takes a fabulous Fabregas pass and almost puts it past the keeper. We all cheer and applaud the effort. Someone starts running across the bar with a huge Arsenal flag. The Gunners in the house cheer.

My leg starts to vibrate. Right leg, close to my hip. I look across at Tari again. Surely her legs cannot be that long. Or can they? And how can anyone’s toes vibrate like that? Then I remember it is 21st century Nigeria, and I have a cell phone. I reach into my pocket and fish out my phone. Unfamiliar number. I think twice about taking the call. There’s too much noise inside, I don’t want to step out and miss the inevitable third goal. I let it ring out.

About a minute later it starts again. I excuse myself from the table and make a joke about having to take an urgent call from my uncle Arsene. I go outside and answer.

-Hello.

-Hello, this is a policeman, hold on for your caller.

-What?

There’s a brief crackle at the other end, and then a familiar voice.

-Hello,Porter…

-Who’s this, David?

-Ol’ boy no be small thing. We are in a police station.

-Serious? You and who? Wetin happen?

-We been dey come watch the match, they stopped our car and brought us all here.

-You and who?

-Me, Tonye, Peter, Timi, and im younger brother you need come bail us abeg! The guys inside the cell don already dey nack us. We can’t spend the night here.

Police cells. Feaces in the back, urine on the floor, sweating walls, cramped space, hostile detainees, extortion, the stench and potential for infection. Flashback unbearable.

-Wait, which station?

He tells me.

-Na inside cell, or behind counter?

-My guy u no hear wetin I dey talk? We dey cell, dem wan kill us inside here.

-How much the police people talk say dem want?

He tells me.

For some reason, I laugh. Maybe it’s the alcohol; maybe it’s the amount of money involved and the fact that I’ve got no chance of raising enough money to bail 5 people and a car at this time of the night. Maybe I’m just a stupid, wicked boy.

-It’s not funny, I told them I would call my lawyer

-Who?

-You of course.

I laugh again. Me, lawyer. Struggling student like me. I try to picture going down to the station with Bentico, breathing beer, and pretending to be lawyers. I laugh yet again.

-Abeg just come, dem seize our phones so na their payphone I dey use. 100 naira per minute, my money don finish.

-So na me be your lawyer eh?

-Just come abeg

And he’s gone.

I review the situation as I walk back into the spot. Here I was with friends having a great time with my team doing well, giving me a reason to taunt Bentico. Even the girls seemed to be on my side. Now I had 5 of my friends locked up in some dingy cell and they were counting on me to come and get them out. I was their lawyer. I never even go the school finish sef. Dem sabi how many carryover I get? And they couldn’t honestly expect me to come up with that kind of money for bail. Or could they?

I get back to the table. Arsenal is under some pressure now and the score line is 2-1. How did this happen? Where did my great night go? I shouldn’t have taken that call. Maybe I’d had a Joshua moment going- the team needed me to be watching for it to succeed. I took my eye off the ball and our fortunes changed. Bentico, the redeemed prophet is having fun, grinning from ear to bloody ear with all his ‘I told you so’s. Tari orders yet another Gulder for me. She’s done that quite a few times already and I wonder what her game plan is. Maybe she wants to get me drunk so that she can…

I take Bentico away from the table and we huddle together. The maybe-false prophet, and the maybe-Joshua. Me and my co-counsel. I tell him about the call and our caged comrades. He smiles.

-So we are supposed to be their lawyers? They should see our criminal law grades.

-And our lean wallets.

We both laugh. Wicked us.

On these oily streets of Port Harcourt, young men seem to be an endangered species. Long before this once-garden city became kidnap central, bands of armed men dressed in black were engaged in the abduction of young men at gunpoint. The name of this gang was and still is the Nigeria Police Force. When the men in black searched you, a nail-cutter in your pocket would be entered in your charge-sheet as a dagger. A lighter would mean you were an arsonist. A cyber café ticket would make you a cyber fraudster.

Their offences would be cooked up, totally fabricated. The ransom would be bail.

The whole restive situation and the militant problem have only made it worse. The police seem to avoid tangling with the real militants and criminals, preferring instead to harass the innocents. It is a ridiculous situation, they sometimes accost you, subject you to a body search, and when nothing incriminating is found on you, they take your cell phone and ask you for the receipt.

We decide against going to the police station and attempting any kind of rescue. We can’t afford it, and there’s no guarantee we won’t be thrown into the cell ourselves. We make a few calls and get some friends to commit to contributing to the ‘save our pals’ fund. We’ll go down to the station in the morning. Not tonight.

As we return to our drinks and the girls, I can’t help but feel a bit guilty. A police cell is a really messed up place to spend the night. David and the others will probably get beaten but they’ll come out with a few interesting war stories to tell over some drinks. Arsenal let another goal in. Damn you Jens Lehmann!

Bentico is rubbing it in. Ama is trying hard not to laugh at me. Tari comes to sit beside me to calm me down. She has her hand on my thigh now. I wonder how the night will end. I’ll get to sleep on a bed, and maybe even play catch up with my ex. Somewhere not too far away, my friends will get no sleep and for them the night will be a long and dreadful one. I feel something, maybe guilt. I drain my glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tari as she discreetly signals a waiter to bring me yet another Gulder.

Yours and mine

2007-07-13T16:34:00.000+01:00

In Nigeria
Wealth and weeping
Want and reaping
Tinted pleasure
Sinful leanings
Checkpoint robberies
Daylight rigging

Restive south’ners
Propaganda
OPEC quotas
Poisoned waters
Flawed unseatings
Reasoned verdicts
Sword unsheathings

Aso rumbles
Party stalwarts
Secret meetings
Whiteman sightings
Mass kidnappings
Cash transactions
Drastic actions

Unemployment
Yahoo option
Double standards
Fight corruption
Keke NAPEP
Pipe explosions
Crawling traffic
Surging oceans

One Nigeria
No Bakassi
Census figures
Looted billions
Crashing airplanes
Sans blackboxes
PHCN
Blacked out cities

Bloated contracts
Shrunken children
Increased tariffs
Labour congress
This our country
Work in progress…

Today is not Monday

2007-07-05T10:12:00.001+01:00

I got back from my 3week visit to Lagos on Saturday. The journey took all of ten hours and I think I suffered some nerve damage from all that sitting down. You've heard of dumb-ass now here comes numb-ass...I wish I could fly especially as it's been a while since any plane fell out of the sky in these parts. we thank God.

Port Harcourt hasn't changed much...same old same old. Traffic. Rain. Parties. Violent crime. Beautiful women. Craters in the road. Native soup (loaded of course,with an assortment of seafood...delish!). Money-hungry girls. Control Babas. Demented okada riders. Politcal Intrigue. Fresh fish peppersoup.

At least ASUU has called of the strike so we can get on with it. Person don dey old for dis school. It's going to be a hectic semester and a-half squeezed into a couple of months, but I think I'll live.

Lagos was interesting. Bridges. Amala. Nice clubs. Stinking gutters. Huge campaign billboards (take them down already!). Icecream. Suya. Molues. Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. Effizzi. Hustlers. Yahoo boys. Suya again. Radio. Lagoon. New money. Hasta La Vista baby, but I'll be Back!

Apparently, the people there dress up to the nines just to visit the mall. There was casual old me surrounded by men, women, and children in designer gear. Girls in tapered jeans, twelve-inch heels, and huge Gucci shades. The joke was them. There's no excuse for being overdressed in the mall, whether it's The Palms or anywhere else. There was this particular lady with make up that gave the word highbrow a whole new meaning. But then again, I guess they don't refer to Lekki as being highbrow for nothing.

It felt good to be able to wear my clothes without thinking too much about the colour. I can't do that in school. Apparently, almost every colour in the colour spectrum is the adopted 'flag' of one cult or the other. We innocents can not risk being wrongly identified just because you wear a certain combination of colours. It's impossible and ridiculous.

no wear red and black o! you know say na those people wey get school now.

hmmm, dis your yellow shirt fit put you for problem my guy.

shoo, na wa oh which one you wear black and white when you no be law student abi you don turn to axe man?

this kin socks wey you wear today, i don dey suspect you!

It goes on and on. You end up having to wear the safe colours like brown, grey, or purple, pink, or lime green...it gets ridiculoser and ridiculoser.But I'm certain that in some similarly shitty school in a parallel dimension, even those colours are forbidden. How we go do? We wey be Jewmen. You may think it's stupid but people have been killed for wearing the wrong colours. Last year a guy was killed in a cult hit because he had a red shirt on. It's that bad.

So anyway, I went to Lagos and for once I could dress as colourfully as a pimp, but with slightly better taste. It was fun. I'm back to Earth and my earth tones now. And I'm back to the small off-campus apartment I share with my friend, a total megalomaniac bigot. I'm back to arguing with him and getting irritated by his attitude and frustrated with his absolute inability to have a logical argument. I didn't miss him at all when I was in Lagos. He gives me my respect and we live peacefully but I can't stand all that prejudice and bigotry even though it is rarely ever aimed at me. He's such a bully and I can't help but step in when he starts harassing someone. The boy too do. Did I mention that he's a misogynist as well. Thank God I have just a few months left to be in this school...can't wait.

In all the time I spent in Lagos(21 days), I had just one bottle of beer. It felt like I was cleaning out my system. It felt good. I've been back in Port Harcourt for less than a week and it seems my friends are intent on upsetting my blood-alcohol balance. It's crazy. These Port Harcourt boys can be notorious. I've danced in a restaurant (not a dancing resautrant, mind), been to a couple of parties, scaled the gate of my compound to get in at 3am (my landlord is an old soldier, I've seen his double barrel twice). I've had enough adventure. Time for school work now. Dem no go see me.

So it's good to be back, but there's work to be done. My sly neighbours upstairs are timing me- waiting for me to finish cooking so that they can come and visit. E no go happen. No be everyday be Christmas. I'll lock windows and eat while they watch me from outside, begging to come in. It's all fun though, na moving train we dey call dat one! We'll all laugh about it later, as they wait for their chance to do me back. Life is good.

TV Raised Me!

2007-06-07T14:30:00.000+01:00

...But I'd like to thank the streets that drove me crazy

And all the televisions out there that raised me

-LUPE FIASCO (DAYDREAM)

TV raised me. It became my addiction, influenced my language and impacted my diction. I see myself standing out there in the lights, Grammy, Oscar, Pulitzer or whatever award or statuette in hand, and then I give props to God, my father, my mother, and television. So I’m neither an artist, actor nor writer. Call me a dreamer if you like, but blame television because it played a part.

TV, that box with boundless content-some of it entertaining, some shocking, some stimulating, some sinful, and some downright evil. Food for thought? TV can serve up feast. I remember sitting in a classroom and just thinking of all the programs I’d watch when I got back home. TV was the motivation for me to finish my assignments and lunch pronto! The light from the screen would meet the light of wonderment in my eyes, and I’d spend so many hours in front of that box. Meals would be a distraction and every errand pulling me away from the TV, an absolute annoyance.

Long before satellite television and 24hr local channels, 4pm was H-hour for me. My brother and I would wait in front of the TV from about 3pm. We’d sit there watching those colour bars. Then we’d stand at attention for the national anthem. My father would be very amused. We would listen intently to the program schedule and then settle down. Wrestling was a big hit with us. Loved Hulk Hogan, hated Andre the Giant. My brother practiced a lot of wrestling moves on his willing volunteer- silly little me. Thank God my spine is still intact.

Back then, TV signals were very weak, or perhaps our antennae were not very receptive. Either way, there was a lot of pole turning going on. My brother would go out and turn the pole on which the external antenna sat, desperate to achieve a clearer picture. He’d be outside turning, I’d be inside directing.

Is it clear?
No!
Is it clear?
No!
How about now?
It’s even worse than before?
And now?
Blank, nothing…oh wait stop!
What?
Go back, turn it back, it showed that time!

How can I forget such small screen delights as the courtroom comedy set in colonial times, Ichoku, the ever-hilarious Jagua or that classic gem of Nigerian television The Village Headmaster. It wasn’t all fun though. Sometimes, the TV was the source of a lot of animosity. My brother and I fought over the remote several times. There was this particularly scary program on at that time. If you grew up in Port Harcourt, you know Willy-Willy. Forget the fact that the title could be mistaken for a phallic reference. There was nothing funny about it. i didn't have the balls to watch it. Utterly hated it. I still do. As a matter of fact I don’t know anyone who has fond memories of that show even though it was a hit. Just the haunting melody of the theme music was enough to send me scurrying to my room. I’d be in tears begging that they turn the TV off. Unsurprisingly, my brother loved Willy-Willy. We still laugh about it now but my own laff na from my throat.

Cable TV was a blessing. I remember watching The Three Stooges on weekends. Coming back home from school to catch Captain Planet. Seinfeld, The Commish, Quantum Leap, Friends, I was getting sensory overload. I was having so much fun that I began to rebel against my 10pm bedtime rule. My father was adamant, after the 9pm Network News (yes, I used to watch it as a child, and no, I wasn’t forced to) I was banished to bed. I remember the guilt I’d feel whenever I was watching any movie that wasn’t rated for general viewing. My brother (yes, him again) would tell me to scram when a PG13 movie came on. Oh, the indignities one suffers in his pre-teen years! There was a time one of my darkest secrets was the number of R18 movies I’d seen!

When I went to boarding school, my TV obsession continued. I became something of an expert on the subject of movies. I could reel off Val Kilmer’s movie credits and tell you how much DeNiro got paid for Wag the Dog or what Waterworld made (cough!) at the box office. If you couldn’t remember the name of the actor who played the role of the prison warden in Shawshank Redemption, I was the man to see. There was a neat arrangement which saw us gathering in our common rooms at the weekends for some movies. Somehow that tradition wasn’t sustained. I began having withdrawal symptoms. Suddenly the hostel began to feel a bit like prison, or rehab. At some point my prayers were answered and our proprietress hooked us up with a satellite connection. We had such a good time with that for about a week, until someone stole the decoder. I was distraught.

The holiday could never come to soon. Back home, I’d pork on movies and TV programs. I couldn’t get enough. One day, I went to the video club to borrow some movies. After I’d made my selection, I was told that I had broken some sort of record and was therefore entitled to a bonus 10 rentals. Would I like to take some now, and the rest later? No siree! I’ll take ‘em all right away. There I was hauling a ridiculous stack of fourteen movies from the video club to our house. Of course my brother and I had another fight. He thought he was entitled to select some of the movies.

Whenever I was back home, I’d be caught up in the 30 minute cycle of TV programs. I’ll go and take a bath after this program. I’d say to myself. Then just as the program was ending and I was backing out to the bathroom, another interesting one would come on. The programs would segue into each other and I'd sit there, glued. Let’s just say that back then, I was taking my morning showers right around lunchtime. Eventually I was allowed to stay up and watch TV for as long as I liked. On a few occasions, my father would go off to bed just before 9pm. He’d ask me to watch the network news and tell him all about it in the morning. By then I had lost interest in the 9 o’clock news. I’d watch something else, then wake up in the morning and listen to the 7 o’clock news on the radio and relate that to my father. Ingenious eh? He knew the difference. He caught me in the lie. We laughed about it.

I've come a long way from those days when my life seemed to revolve around the box. I still love to watch Television programs and movies, but my attention span seems to have shortened. I flip channels so often that the buttons on my remote controls are worn. I have a bit of a reputation as a flipper. When some one else is watching, I politely yield the remote. One of my sisters suggested that maybe all that TV watching fried my brain and left me with ADHD -attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. My retort is that all those ridiculously colourful clothes she wore from the 1980's and into the 90's have somehow affected her ability to reason (hey, maybe TV made me a bit rude. hmmm). Today, I can only follow a sitcom or drama if I get it on DVD (bootlegs 500 Naira for an entire season) and then I never finish watching the damn thing.

So once again, raise my glass and doff my hat to that magical box that brings a lot into our homes, takes us to untold places, and fills us with wonderment, joy and sadness. If you think I'll ever stop watching the box, you can fuggedaboudit. Right now, I'm off to watch the Sopranos.

tick-tock tick-tock then nada

2007-05-30T19:20:00.000+01:00

i feel like i'm in a bloody anti-climax. tick-tock tick-tock the timer counts down to 00:00 and then, just as we brace ourselves and excpect the worst...nothing.

the bomb fails to go off, the rocket won't launch, the calabash tips over but it's abominable contents fail to spill out.

so maybe it's not as dramatic as that whole y2k bug thing. maybe we (or is it just me) were being a bit too cynical in expecting a bit of drama on May 29th (democracy day...hmmmpff). or perhaps not, these days, cynicism is the Nigerian reality. remember that half-assed attempt to 'blow up' the INEC HQ on the morning of the Presidential elections? wasteful and potentially disastrous as that was it sure did stir things up a bit, and we still dunno whodunnit ordowe?

which brings us to that rather uneventful event at the Eagle Square yesterday. no demonstrators, no detractors chanting, no rolling gas cylinder-laden, well filled petrol tankers to add some colour to the event, nothing. what would have been the highest point for me even ended up to be a dud-i was hoping at least one of the presidential outriders who were 'thrilling' the crowd by performing dangerous stunts on their government issued bikes (with the taxpayers' fuel at #75 per litre) would fall off, but no, nothing, nada.

in 1999 Obasanjo had one star phrase from his speech: NO SACRED COWS

in 2003 nobody was really interested in what Obasanjo had to say...by then we had more sacred cows than there are in India

yesterday Yar'Adua had a good phrase for us to hold over his head and beat him with whenever he acts contrarily: SERVANT LEADER

we'll hold him to that and hope he's the servant of the people rather than OBJ's puppet. even Geppetto let Pinnocchio live at some point. let's see how long the strings stay on, and get pulled.
anticlimactic as yesterday was, i think we are on our way to a better place. i'll stay cynical to stay alive. but for now i'll have to go and find my climax somewhere else