Mami-Eko unmasked..

If you live, work or commute in/to Lagos, you must have encountered her in one form or another, yes, the invincible Mami Eko, causer of inexplicable traffic jams.

Recently, I embarked on a spiritual journey; that is what I do when I seek answers to questions that seem to tug at my heart and for which there is no clear or logical explanation or answer within reach. As I began to chant softly get into the zone and a higher level of consciousness, I meditated upon the magical words ijebu garri and iced water,  this magic combination handed down to us by our ancestors, and which has proven time and again to possess the power to transport mere mortals to a higher spiritual plane on a hot, humid day.

As a softly chant and meditate, I am propelled into a trance and removed from myself. I begin to see the world around me, differently,  to see beyond clothes and mere flesh into the souls and inner consciousness of the people around me.

As I levitate through time and space, I find myself looking at Lagos from near-space, a bird’s eye view, or more like an alien’s eye view of Lagos, congestion, rats racing and all.

Before me I see spread out across the landscape, an endless row of cars, from Iyana Ipaja to Ikorodu road, from Third Mainland bridge to Okota Isolo, the reality was the same, traffic, bumper to bumper traffic!

As i steer through my spiritual eyes, I see her.. yes o, I see her, jumping from one congested mass of cars to the other, I see her…  with her crooked teeth, earthen-ware pot on her head and her torn wrapper draped over her mid section. I see her, no teeth in her mouth, a crooked smile on her face, and her wrinkled skin like the bark of a 100 year old iroko tree. I see her, she whom I have named Mami Eko.

As she jumps and prances, she does a magical dance which inexplicably drives and commuters alike to slow things down and gradually grind to a halt. I am amazed, they cannot see her, I say to myself, so how do they know to slow down and just for no apparent reason, drive as slow as their means of transportation can take them?

Really, you should have been there… that old woman can dance sha o, I am almost certain I saw her do the moon walk, then a back flip, then the slide, before she went into a bout of running-man still dressed in her wrapper and grinning from ear to ear like he who shall use good-luck and not common sense to solve all our problems.

I summon the courage to speak to her. In my best Fela imitation, I say to her. Behold, why do you do what you do the way you do it to affect our lives in traffic so? She stops abruptly, and for an instant, traffic seems to ease up as the cars begin to move slowly… in a very calm voice, she tells me that she just loves to dance and does not know why I am making such a fuss.

I ask her, why then do you have a pot on your head and what is in it..? To that, she looks at me like a mother looks at a child who knows not the difference between a medicinal herb and a patch of grass and says matter-of-factly “it is patience in the pot o!” I have put all your patience in this pot, and as long as I dance (which I love to do) the patience would be disturbed and you shall all become restless and impatient for no reason. It is so much fun watching all of you attempt to create 20 lanes on a road that is built for 5 lanes…

*scratching my chin* as I slowly withdraw from her as she slowly and gradually begins to dance herself into a frenzy as the congestion becomes tighter and tighter on the road. She dances on and on, as I hover forward I get to the ‘head’ of the traffic line, and not surprisingly, there is absolutely nothing in the middle ahead, in fact from that point on, traffic is amazingly free flowing.

Spent from my spiritual travel, I return to my human form and realize that I am sweating… slowly; I become conscious of where I am and what I am doing. The car-horns are blaring/ hooting as other motorists are shouting unprintable obscenities at me..

Ah, now I know where I am, in traffic on third mainland bridge where I had remained on the same spot for 45 minutes, without even the slightest movement. For some reason, there are no longer any cars in front of me, although the cars backed up behind me are now about 100 deep…

I put the car in drive and I accelerate. Ever conscious of Mami Eko and her antics, I wonder if she has made a quick dash to Ikorodu Road to do some dancing. Or perhaps, she has decided to go and pee in the spirit world. Whatever it is, I am glad to be able to continue on my journey home…

Ever wondered why you sit in traffic for endless hours and you get to the head and there is absolutely no cause for the hold up? Now you know…

End.

Why I stopped drinking STOUT

I recall the words of my mother as she hammered certain values into my young mind as I took my baby steps and gradually leaped into manhood. Such buzz words like hard work, loyalty, commitment, respect, integrity, and firing squads (or the fear of it), served as a solid platform in my youth.

As I grew into a rebellious adolescent, and subsequently adult, I was driven by a desire to experiment and do “different stuff” within limit! This naturally led me to the other side of the fence every now and then, and oh how I remember those days when I was young and foolish, where mama’s words always guided me home and the thought of a good lashing seemed to make me a better person... still, I climbed the fence..

(faint echo as the breeze blows softly, sending my hair flying around my face in slow motion (like a L’Oreal commercial) I hear the words, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

And so I did it well. I became a good bad guy and started experimenting with controlled substances, in this case, alcohol, and cigarettes. No one ever tells you how bitter those things are when you first taste them; rather, you are encouraged to believe that it is an acquired taste you will acquire as you indulge.

I started with larger… for my fellow almost-drunks out there, you would know that back then, beer was either presented in a big green bottle or a brown big bottle. There were no mini or minor beers in Lagos, just good ‘ol biggies (sometimes with the oddest names)…  

So, larger became my friend after school and we had such a fun relationship, though not exclusive, as my pals, Tonye, Emeka and co. were always on hand to make the circle complete. I however soon learned that beer was more about quantity than quality; so I made the transition to drinking stout.
 
I was a Stout man from my second year in school all through to my national service days in Abuja. It was while I was an Abuja resident that I discovered the true meaning of alcohol-induced stupidity. Friday night with the boys, Kubwa estate, phase 4. As a young Youth Corper in Abuja, we had nothing else to do than drink, shoot pool, and ogle at young girls as they crossed the threshold from girlhood to womanhood, sometimes with our kind assistance

On this fateful day, the chap who managed the pool (snooker) table was unavailable, and the fish were not biting either, so we did the next best thing. We drank, and drank! From 8.00pm to midnight, we drank and sang merrily.

At midnight or thereabout, we began the process of bill reconciliation (aka gbese) to enable us to pay for the alcohol we had consumed. 35 minutes, a signed I.O.U, and some hard punching on a calculator, we were on our way to our respective lodgings.

I arrive in front of the semi-detached duplex I share with my uncle (I was squatting with him) and I ring the bell and wait for my uncle to open the door and let me in. I wait, but he does not come. So I sit on the bench outside the house while I wait for him…in vain.

I awake on the bench at 7.00am the next morning and everything seems unusually bright and fast-paced, for a moment, I wonder where the ceiling went. Even the floor seemed to be moving under my feet (this has absolutely nothing to do with the nine bottles of small stout I consumed the night before, diligently)! I say to myself… a lot must have changed while I slept.

Anyways, I try the door handle and to my surprise, the door wasn’t even locked in the first place. I dash upstairs, fumble through taking a bath and getting dressed for work, and then I dash out hoping to catch the staff bus heading to my office in Maitama.

Not surprisingly, I missed the bus! Then a bright idea hit me! I could take an okada (or achaba as it is called in the Northern part of Nigeria) and meet up with the bus, somewhere (#light-bulb-moment!).

Somehow, I, on the bike, chase the bus all the way from Kubwa to Maitama, going past 4 robots (traffic lights) and 3 major intersections, where I was parked side by side with the bus, but it didn’t occur to me to board it… (I knew there was something I should have done each time the bus came to a stop at an intersection… (I just couldn’t figure out what exactly that was)…

I endure the risky okada driving and the sand in my eyes, but for the oddest reason I cannot fathom, it all felt good. Surprisingly, I get to the office a few seconds before the staff bus, at which time my brilliance kicks into overdrive...

(in fast forward) I pay the bike man for the ride and struggle to force my way into the bus as everyone else tried to alight from it. I elbow and kick my way through to the back of the bus, and sit, I make myself comfortable as a strong sense of achievement and accomplishment gradually envelopes me. I made it, I finally made it (I say to myself)!

Then the alcohol wears off an hour later as I am roused from sleep by an irate bus driver who threatens to beat a sense of responsibility into me…

…I realized what it was…I should have gotten off the bike and boarded the bus!.. I blush as I  realize I had just achieved a new personal best in stupidity.

An hour later, I stopped drinking STOUT!
 
End.