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ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1982 (Part Forty-Three)
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1982 (Part Forty-Three)
“Hey, Moyo,” Hilda yelled. “Are you alright? Are you with us?”
“Yes, I am,” I responded. I pulled myself back to the moment.
The traffic was light and the road excellent. The Lagos to Benin expressway was the best road I had ever driven on. The bus zoomed along on it effortlessly.
“You went so silent and looked so vacant, I could have sworn you were not here,” Steve said.
“I was here alright,” I answered.
“Thinking about Gina?” Hilda asked.
They have discovered that they gain nothing from being part of Nigeria.
The Yoruba people are agitating to be free from Nigeria.
They have discovered that they gain nothing from being part of Nigeria, but they lose a lot by remaining in Nigeria.
I ask, “Why do they want to move away from Nigeria?”
They say they are concerned that northerners are invading their villages, abducting their women and children, polluting their rivers with illegal mining, driving cattle through their farmlands—and making legislation (with the assistance of the few Omo Aale among them), to strip their lands to build the north.
BEFORE THE BLACKOUT
As I think about my new granddaughter, my daughter and what they know about me, about Africa, and about their tradition, a tormenting thought ran through my mind:
We, members of my generation, stand between the light and the void. And we are the last stand holding up the ancestral heritage. We must mine what is available and keep them in a culture bank, or too much will perish.
The Odo Ogbe market
I went to the Odo Ogbe market, Ile Ife.
The market women went, “Oyinbo, come give us a hug.”
This world is beautiful.
THE PARABLE OF THE TOO BIG TO FALL
When young women went to the river to fetch water, they would disappear.
The king’s royal beads even went missing.
People were worried. One of the wise men said, “Let’s approach Ọlọ́run to give us a police boss.”
But who could they trust? One of them must be the thief.
They decided unanimously that the only trustworthy person in the entire community was Ijapa.
Ijapa gave them only one condition: “Nobody should visit my house without letting me know in advance that they were coming.”
My mumu is too much.
My mumu is too much.
Hear my story o.
They just fixed the electricity at my place in Nigeria.
To get it fixed, I bought four poles, and hundreds of yards of cable.
I contributed hundreds of thousands of naira to get the transformer.
I bought the meter.
And paid to have the entire thing installed.
But I understand that none of these things that I bought belongs to me.
They all belong to the government.
