Danfo Chronicles: When masquerades go to church and gays become criminals

It was a few years ago, at the time citizen news reportage was gaining traction across the nation, that news of masquerades meting out corporal punishment on miniskirt and trouser wearing young ladies somewhere in the Nsukka  axis reached social media.

As usual, the Nigerian social media reacted true to type with that outpouring of anger that occurs whenever vestiges of the ‘devilish’ past of our ancestors appear to be in conflict with the sacred untouchable manifestations of the new religion.

Caught up in outrage, most of us missed the big story, which was not that masquerades enforced a dress code, but that this dress code stemmed originally from the Christian church.

Old Van in a New Bus

Most people who use the danfo or any other yellow bus to commute through the mad dash that is the average Lagos route are not unaware of the fact that the cars served as a goods conveyance van in Europe, this hardly registers. 

However, even if they don’t know what for sure, they know the tokunbo cars must have served another purpose in their previous incarnation, especially when they contemplate the dress-ripping makeshift seats and rough-hewn windows that just about serve the purpose they were meant for. They know that the iron-rimmed seats are not standard issue, at least from whence the car came, and that the chance of bodily injury if an accident occurs was amplified by their addition. They know the drivers are largely reckless—early morning shot of paraga and Igbo reckless—and the buses disasters waiting to happen. They know this, but throw their lives into the arms of in-time-of-trouble-and-need-gods as they clamper aboard the buses every morning, afternoon and night. The need to transit overshadowing fear, caution, and whatever sense of impropriety they might feel.

The other war we are not talking about

Photo from punchng.com

Back in the university, I was a politician; and like all politicians I had to form alliances—another way of saying I manoeuvred to be on the good side of other student politicians or popular students—to improve my chances at the polls.

I never had enough money to go beyond contesting—and winning (thank you very much) my Departmental Presidency—but after contesting for this and that, I knew most of the movers and shakers in my school—Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka. One guy I knew was Obiadada—a nickname, coined from his first name, Obi, and adada, Igbo for ‘one who does not fall’. Obi was the Director of transport when we were in third year.

It's my birthday!

he calender on my wall says it is my birthday, but I doubt if this day share much with the day I first tasted this earth's air. If indeed it shares anything, it must be the memory of the date I dropped gills for lungs. 

My siblings and I grew up without birthday celebrations and I can't remember me or my siblings marking our various dates or telling each other happy birthday--well, my younger siblings, because they grew up in a different age, should be exempt here . This is not to say that we did not look with longing at birthday celebrations and wished that it was us behind the cake, pressing a knife through yummy softness and smirking at the camera man through the flickering flames of candles marking our years on earth.

We yearned for ours but only ever came close to realising this dream by sharing those of others. I can still see clearly the colour fotos from a time past. I can still place people in the rows and replace babyish faces with adult faces here and there. Though many names have since faded with time, a lot of names still come easily to the tongue. EB 2 Dutse Close looms in my mind and names of the lucky few whose birthdays, usually the 1st birthday , form on my lips. Lips that draw into sad lines as I recall names that can only now be stated in the past, names of people now in the world removed from this one.

I did get my chance to celebrate a birthday. Then I was already in the university and the fun muted as the mind had bigger fishes to fry.

Perhaps the fact that I thought little of birthdays, mine or other's, had something to do with the lack of birthday celebrations in my house. Still, I forget even my own and can't readily without thinking hard tell that of most of my siblings. I have to key in a reminder a week or more before so that I don't forget my wife's. lol. I don't remember dates well at all.

Well Facebook have changed that. Now friends ensure I don't forget the joy of birthdays and I have a party in my head knowing many people took the time to say 'Happy Birthday'.

The calendar on my wall says it is my birthday . My chi says you are born, you live, and then you die, a straight forward life marked by days and nights and the changing seasons . My chi also says I am no longer a man alone, so birthdays have been added to those must-remember dates, for my daughter, for my wife, for my crazy sister who tells me not to be 'too old school joor'.

Today, another circle is complete and we are officially older. Much thanks for everyone who sent a shout-out, may you be remembered too.

Boko Haram and the finger pointing nation

My constantly changing Twitter and Facebook timelines are announcing news of another attack in Kano as I write this.

It’s Easter Sunday and I am lying sprawled on the now child-battered centre rug that used to be my pride and joy. Coming from the kitchen is the sound of something sizzling in oil and the scent of spices. My wife is cooking a feast for the Easter Celebration. I do not call out to her to inform her of the latest bomb story. I actually stopped telling her about the bombings long ago. On her part, gone are those exclamations, which used to be her response to news of another mass killing. Ewuchim o! She used to exclaim—an expression that encompasses the pain and helplessness that mark such situations. These days, when she hears of another attack she just shakes her head sadly and say “eeyah”.