As a policy . . . I usually don’t patronize service providers in my neighbourhood, just cos the majority of them are not ‘professional’, forgetting that it’s no everyone that mixes business with friendship.
This is cos they wrongly focus on YOU, the person instead of the issue at hand.
However, there are occasions that calls for quick fixes. One such made me take my car to this panel beater sometime back . . . My bumper was falling off on both edges, so I needed him to fix them back in, as well as tap a small dent out.
‘It’ll be ready in an hour,’ he assured.
“How much ?” I asked.
From his N4k estimated fee . . . We agreed N2.5k, and I paid in full, left the car, and walked home, with the knowledge to him that I left personal stuffs in the vehicle. An indication for him to ensure the safety of my car.
2 hours later, I showed up for my car, though the job was finished, it parked blocks away – Something prompted me to try opening the passenger door . . . Lo and behold, it was unlocked. I motioned for them to bring my key from where I was, pissed.
The ‘Omo Ise’ (assistant) brought it down and said I was to balance him N500.00 . . . “For what again ?” I asked.
The ‘Oga’ by now had also shown up:
‘E lé sha’ (meaning you’re difficult mehnnnn).
I got into my car and made to drive away.
The panel beater protested, grumbling also.
I parked and asked:
“What’s the meaning of all these rubbish ?”
‘Your money is remaining N500.00,’ he protested.
Angrily, I asked, “HOW ?”
‘E ni twofife lè ma sàan ke’ (You said you’ll pay me N2.5k)
In exasperation, I asked if he counted the money I gave him hours prior.
Thinking it was N2k, that was when the ‘maga’ brought out the money already folded and tucked jn his pocket, and then counted . . . His N2.5k was complete – Completed by me hours ago.
Phew.
*
He’s one customer less – Just lost a valuable user ke !
I get a lot of positive acknowledgements these days, sometimes, undeserved too:
‘Good morning, Sir . . . ‘
‘How do you do, Sir ?’
‘Safe journey, Sir . . . ‘
‘You are welcome, Sir . . . ‘
Possibly the effect of my white beard, an assumption that the ‘whiteness’ connotes old age, cos those things are really not ‘normal’ in this axis of the world, for policemen to readily show you respect and not reproach or intimidation, it’s a rarity at our checkpoints.
Truth is I rarely ever get flagged down or stopped by the police and this was my reaction to a friend when we travelled together in his car to Ondo Town in late January, my friend, though a few months younger got stopped at every three or four checkpoints and I had to school him that there’s a ‘technique / trick’ to beating them in their ‘game’.
Most times, upon leveling up with an ‘officer’ manning a post – I wind down my glass without even being told, totally reduce the volume of my car radio, flash a toothy smile and greet (they love you rubbing their egos), immediately reeling out the name of the personnel by reading his nametag off his chest, replacing the English language with Yoruba once i realise he’s ‘tiwan-tiwa’ (Yoruba like me).
The usual result is for them to voice out one of those utterances above and wave me on.
Its worked like magic for me, at least until a few days ago barely 500 meters to the turn off the Sagamu-Benin expressway, into my hometown road in Esure, and I had gotten stopped by a young officer. He had forcefully parked me off the road and then gone ahead to ask for my driver’s license of all things. I gave him a photocopy for him to have a look at and he called out to his Oga, handing that one the copy when he came to my car.
Oga, with a smiling face, took a look at the copy and immediately handed it back to me, saying:
‘Be going jare – He is still new on the job and can be very overzealous . . . ‘
The fact I got stopped at all was strangely out of place for me, but then, I played along; no force, no disrespect, no disobedience.
Oftentimes, weather beaten, blue-black in the rains and sunshine, they also want to be shown some love; an admiration or a form of commendation, and not necessarily money. Oh surely, you can’t rule out encountering the ‘bad-eggs’ amongst them who forcefully seek for gratification. That’s the plain reason to ensure your documentation will papers are not only complete but intact.
Yeah, the police is your friend, only when you understand their language – Respect begets respect, don’t look down on them or treat them as ‘trash’ and expect them to be easy on you.
Not in her wildest dreams was it even possible, I was saying to myself – An instant response to her tirade with me concerning her husband . . .
They were having their ‘hard’ times, a situation that was seemingly getting out of hand and which in reality wasn’t much of a secret anymore. I mean, it was glaring to the outside world that the man of the house wasn’t happy, at least in the real sense of the phrase, not ‘happily married’.
These were people I knew about from the get go, from the very beginning, from back in the day, when we shared the same office and, she had mentioned him to me:
‘I like him, but there are ‘red-flags’ . . . ‘
Upon blurting out her concerns, I be like these are all issues that can be worked upon, especially if you focus on the goal and the numerous good sides to this man, at least, no-one is perfect.
Of course, he had flaws, just like you, he’s only human anyway, except if you can’t live with those flaws, I made it known to her.
He had struck me as a gentleman when I eventually met him weeks later; cool, calm and collected. Really good looking for someone his age also – And then everything thereafter happened so so fast.
Their marriage and 3 kids later, the ‘issues’ reared their heads big time, this time around, humongously.
He smokes . He drinks . . .
Everything she really didn’t ever gave a hoot about (cos they were right there from the very beginning), now becoming alarm bells.
Some of the dilemma, I witnessed live and I felt really concerned, moments of madness. At a time, taking up these complications with an adult very close to both parties – Unfortunately and unbelievably, it was brushed aside like a non issue, so I faced my front.
Simply swept under the carpet . Wowowowowowowowowowowoing.
Funny thingy is that none of them needed to have told me anything for me to know what was up . Most times, about 75% of the time, when I’m in an event or anywhere and I’m sort of quiet or seemingly uninterested in the ‘group’, it’s cos I’m observing, I’d seen something of interest, a story I’m locking in on, and already scrutinising in my head, constructing, as a matter of fact – crossing the ‘t’ and dotting the ‘i’.
Truth is, on an individual basis, both parties, husband and wife are okay, the issue only being that they’re both the ‘captains’ on the same ship – An obvious wreck, laying ahead. Two ‘masters’ headed in different or as a matter of favt, opposite directions, certainly is disaster waiting to happen.
So, I had ran into her on this particular day after a long time, and the discussion veered into ‘+×÷=£^’k,d’
I had brought up the issues, their difficulties once again my personal concern – Enraged at my interest, she ranted back at me:
‘If I was married to you, I’ll change you too and be the exact same person as I am now . . . ‘
“No darlyn, no way do you even fit the bill, there was not a chance you and I could’ve ever tango or roll like that – Not even in your wildest dreams . Never, you’re like seeing a raging fire an walking straight into it”
You know that ‘arrogance’ that comes with one person feeling so highly of himself and at the same time looking down on another person and blurting out that arrant nonsense:
‘You are not my type . . . ‘
Nothing but unnecessary superiority complex, but In this very case, you see me also reluctantly towing the ‘unfortunate’ line – Too short, too vocal, too brash, too hyper. Definitely not my type.
A good friend was even much more point blank when he heard the jist:
‘She won’t even make it to your top 10 list . . . ‘
My Mum was not just a fierce, stern and unapologetic woman – added to these obviously odd postures; she was still one of the nicest human beings you can ever think of or come across.
A strict disciplinarian to her immediate family members, a stance most likely emanating from her professional background as a teacher of repute.
For most teachers and a very large extent too, a lot of parents, the saying back in the day, was:
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’
You can therefore deduce from the above that we received a good portion and measure of our own beatings; call it caning or spanking.
Probably the earliest time I remember my Mum flogging me real good for a misdemeanour before my father’s passage . . .
I had walked right into her room as a child, around 7 or 8 years old with her barely clothed and dressing up.
I kun kun didn’t see anything – In all honesty, I can swear I saw absolutely nothing oooo.
But all the same, it’s a day I’m yet to hurriedly forget. Apparently she had warned me severally about just barging in and the importance of knocking before coming into her room.
(Mo je iya, mo je ewe iyaa . . .)
The beating was second to none.
Lololololololololololol !
*
I still remember one of the things she taught me – learning the calendar off head by a song:
’30 days have September, April, June and November – all the rest have 31, except February alone . . . ‘
A quite funny, but equally effective song it was too. She also taught me a very practical way of how to read the clock, plus at the age of about 10 years old, how to peel slices of yam and cook them, the amount of water plus salt necessary and the time span to have them ready for munching.
Such marvelous memories of a great woman – May she continue to Rest In Peace.
Amen.
Looking back – My Mum was fiercely loyal to family and indeed, her friends too.
Two cases readily comes to mind of how she selflessly supported her friends in their times of need.
One such was when her close friend and town woman, Mrs. Jimilehin was undergoing some repair work at her place down our street – my Mum had gone to check on her to see how she was coping and faring when she discovered that her friend was being taken undue advantage of by the artisans.
Right there and then, she spoke up to the repair man on exactly what was required and how much it was – apparently, her friend was going to be ripped off and she would have none of it, at least while there.
As her luck would have it that fateful day and so unfortunately, while going round to see other things inside the Jimilehin’s compound, she took no notice of a septic tank that wasn’t properly covered, stepped on and literally fell inside it.
She was all drenched and soaked with the filthy, smelly water as she was pulled out from the deep storage.
I am so certain she must’ve been utterly embarrassed – especially now having to walk all the way home, 6 blocks away, drenched from top to bottom, a filthy mess.
We were all so shocked to see her in that state that unfortunate afternoon.
A similar show of support was on a particular Sunday, when our then neighbour and equally Church member, Mrs. Fadamiro had come calling in the evening, all stressed up and heavily worried – she had sent a young Church member, by name Gregory with her car, a Mazda 323 on an errand to the Lagos Island area.
Hours later and the day fast grinding to a halt, she worriiedly walked over to our place, wondering what could’ve happened as well as seeking for advice on what to do, going forward.
Those were the days when communication were done face to face and on a one on one basis as there were limited phone lines through which to reach out to people – telephones were as a matter of fact, an exclusive reserve of the rich and wealthy, even though we had one, not everyone did at this said time.
My Mum, had therefore, suggested a formal report for a missing car and person at the police station nearby, and had boldly also accompanied her friend to lodge the complaint at the counter.
Out of their overzealousness, the police station mandated an officer to follow the two complainants down to the residence of the missing car driver, Gregory.
They met his absence, but his Mum was at home. As was their archaic practise back in the day, they had forcefully invited her down to the police station for questioning.
That was how the entire situation escalated and took a turn, Gregory’s Mum making a huge scene out of an already bad situation, questioning my Mum for bringing the police over to come and arrest her, afterall Mrs. Fadamiro didn’t know her house and it wasn’t even my Mum’s car that was seemingly missing.
Such was her attitude towards standing up for those she called family and friends.
*
‘The people who can’t do the good you’re doing – hate you for doing it . . . ‘
I guess the second incident described above must have shaken the ‘faith’ of my Mum as a Catholic – A woman born and raised as an Anglican, but converted into Catholicism by virtue of her marriage to her husband in the late 1950s. She had woken up months thereafter that police incident between her friend and Church member, calling us, her last three children all together and breaking the strange news:
‘When I die, I want to be laid to rest on the soil of the Anglican Cemetery in Ijebu Imushin and according to the rites of passage of the Anglican Church’.
All three of us, teenagers back then, looked at her knowing fully well she ain’t any serious, and then informed our big sister, who now challenged her:
‘If that’s what you want, you’ll have to leave the Catholic Church right now and start attending the Anglican Church, so that everyone sees the obvious from henceforth than for there to be comotion after you’re gone . . . ‘
And that was the end of that aspiration of hers . . . Same person who was her Church Society President for over 20 years, and also the Patron of the Youth Society till her last breath.
It is still unimaginable the very befitting Requiem Mass she got in Lagos on the 4th November, 2010 with about ten Catholic Priests in attendance – I remember, joined with the parish priest, Rev Fr Augustine Ikuomola, his assistant, Rev Fr Innocent Ejiofor, were others like Rev Fr Sebastian Appiah a former head priest at the same parish, Rev Fr Anthony Fadairo, her one time student and former parishioner, Monsignor Patrick Somide, (now late since July 2017), Monsignor Pascal Nwanezeakpu, another former parishioner, Rev Fr Vincent Olofinkua, also a one time parish priest and Monsignor Phillip Hoteyin who was for 9 years the parish priest, too . . .
The Funeral Mass in Esure, Ijebu Imushin was conducted by the Bishop of the Ijebu-Ode Diocese, now late, Albert Fashina and assisted by three other Rev Frs; the parish priest, Rev Fr Sylvester Adeniyi, Rev Fr Sebastian Appiah who followed us all the way from Lagos and the last priest from the Bishop’s Chancery, Rev Fr Jude Ezeigbo.
The presence of a significant number of the clergy at her farewell, like a ‘guard of hinour’ – Her loyalty to the Church till the very end, greatly rewarded.
000,000,000'Shine 
