By ‘Biodun Idris

...”Abe! Abe! Abeeeee! wake up joor! look at the time! are you not going to work?" 

Alhaja's loud voice abruptly ended my dreamland voyage up Sola Banjo's creamy thighs.

Sola was our pretty and delectable next door neighbour, who always came around to play Monopoly® game with us. 

....The image of her splayed yellow thighs, sitted on awa sitting room carpet, 

as she bought up Mayfair and Park lane sites, had always replaced any Playboy®️ magazine naked girl images in a locked up toilet, with the ever ready Imperial Leather®️ soap, for me.

(Yesh, who wants to deny ever wanking before?)

"Damn!" I mumbled to myself, using style to hide my early morning boner from Alhaja....

Chai! and I was almost opening her pynt in the dream o! 🙆🏽‍♂️🙆🏽‍♂️🙆🏽‍♂️

“Mummy! I was almost cu........”

"Kilo wi?" Alhaja asked, stretching her neck further into the half-lit room. "

“Nothing, mummy “

“I'm looking for my pynt “

Her voice hardened :

“Lazy boy! Jus get up and get ready for work! Look at the time? You have missed the Staff bus, so you have to find your way niyen!.... See your life outside??”

Yak yak yak yak.... I was used to it, sooo?

.....Oh shit! I glanced at the tiny musical clock besides my bed, donated by Alhaja herself and it was 6.15 am. 

It had probably got tired of twinkling for the past 15 minutes.

"Mummy, I don't have money for taxi" I mumbled feebly.

I got the expected answer; 

"Have you finished your salary for this month??? She questioned 

I began to stammer:

“Er.....er.....erm......”

I suddenly developed cough :

Uggh! Ughhhh! ......ughhhhh!

Alhaja countered me :

“Cough kee you there!”

I quickly stopped coughing.

Eissssssshhh.

“Abeeeeeee!! Was it not last week they paid you salary???”

“Oni’nòkun’noh!”

Taxi kò, taxi ni! Go to the bustop and catch LSTC!

LSTC (Lagos State Tranport Service)

"That will teach you to stop watching TV till they finish playing National anthem at 12:am" she chided me. 

(TV used to finish at 12am in this days) with National Anthem and The Pledge.

“Anyways, I will leave 50 kobo on the dining table for you.

“And please leave the windows open o! This your room stinks like Agege abattoir “ she added for effect, slamming the door behind her.

Phew! Early morning yawa, I thought to myself as I hurriedly dressed up, washing my face and armpits along the line. 

I wee baff tomorrow èjooor.

....Now the sweet part of the story.....

But, I will have to make it short...

Here we go :

“Basically, that particular day Alhaja woke me, was my elder sister, Kofo's Birthday

Therefore, from experience, I knew all her posh Unilag friends will be coming round for lunch.

Especially Moremi Hall girls. (Cold room)

I usually get back from work around 5pmish.

And I know say all the fine fine Moremi Hall babes go full awa Living-room when I arrive from work that day.

Soo, hey! common? It only makes sense that I arrive in style, to pose for Kofo’s Moremi Hall friends ké?

You see, in those days, I was hustling a holiday job during A'Level's school vacation with Union Bank by Broad Street on Lagos Island.

But even though I was a low level desk clerk in the Shares and Registrar department, I was still required to wear a necktie 👔 as standard office dressing.

Neck tie! Emi amugbo in those days!

Normally, everyone keeps a tie in the office, for easy and quick wearing.

Sooo, you jus wear shirt and trousers to work and jus put on your already knotted tie as soon as you walk through the door. 

  

After this story, you will notice that your regular Zenith Bank officer always wears the same tie for months.

Anyways, that morning, I decided to deck my only polyester, full rubber suit, handed down from my daddy.

In those days, “Turn up Trousers” and “Baggy Suits” was the fashions.

Sooo, as Alhaja woke me up that morning, knowing that I will meet Kofo’s posh Unilag girls at home, I decided to launch “My papa dash me” full rubber polyester suit.

I borrowed one of daddy’s silk tie, from the laundry basket, knotted it, dusted myself down and stepped out into the Obanikoro mild early morning weather.

Comman see stepping nau!!

Hmmmmmmmmm

"Ka ko! Ka ko! Ka ko! Ka ko!"  

Ma Cord shoe was jus making noise all over!

The heels of my Kiwi® polished black Cord shoes was beating “tololo’n tálá” against the quiet, early morning Obanikoro Road pavements. (We lived at 17 Buraimoh)

..I cockily and slowly strode up the road to catch the molué bus to Apongbon on Lagos Island, from my local Obanikoro bus-top.

I was late for work anyways and I could not afford any stain or wrinkles on ma shoes, or well pressed suit, for my lë grande entrance back home later to the Unilag girls, , so I just dey take my time, counting my steps like say I dey go my ex girlfriend’s wedding ceremony.

Eventually, my royal posing ass got to the Obanikoro bustop on Ikorodu Road and I realistically weighed my options;

One, the Union Bank staff bus had gone since 19gbogboro, so no show for that side. 

Two, Alhaja's 50kobo was the only money in my whole wide world and taxi fare to Broad Street was about 1 Naira, or 80kobo after much haggling, so taxi was not happening. 

Thirdly, walking from Obanikoro to Apongbon on Lagos Island was a ‘No No’ option.

In fact, It did not even cross my mind, except the small kànáku I had sneakily smoked in my room earlier was deceiving my brain.... mbá!

Soooo, the only realistic option was to bus it. 

Molué, or LSTC. (BRT) 

Only slay dons like Dotun, the legendary Lobito and Adebayo (KaS Chicken) rode power bikes in those days. They wee not even stop for me at bus-top! 

Maybe because of her Ijebu pedigree, Alhaja preferred Molué, but I always dreamt of going to work in a limousine.

Anyways, I don't have much writing space to describe the difference between both buses, but the Molué was rough! 

As in real shakitibobo! 

It was an epitome of Fela's lyrics in "Shuffering and Shmiling: 

🎵49 sitting, 99 standing 🎵

It was cheaper, dirty, tacky, rickety and designed for the poor. 

Molué was for 'Slammy Slackers' like me, that had finished their month’s salary by the first week, at Paradiso Nite Klun, or Fela's Africa Shrine.

"Cheaper" made my choice for me. 

I no get choice; Na molué I go enter.

Now, the honest truth was, in 1980, I had only ever rode on a Molué bus, a couple of times. 

Oh yes, I used to enter dànfo bus well well, but the Molue was not for the faint-hearted.

At that time, I was still a bit green around the edges, so I lacked the required finesse to hang with one leg on a Molue door step, or tailgate if you like, talk less of trying to "gaan" a moving Molue! 

Aaaaah! I fumbled that day!

The main problem for me that day was, dànfo buses did not stop at Obanikoro bus-top, so I braced my ajebutter self, clad in baggy brown suit and knotted silk tie, for the next Molue bus to arrive.

The Molué conductor always hopped off, shouting "Eko eko! eko eko! Eko straight! eko straight! Yaba mà wole o!"

As was normal at that time of the morning, the bus-top was always crowded, packed with workers, students and traders, or what not, all headed to the Island, for their daily hustle.

As soon as a half filled Molué pulls up, the crowd will surge forward in a rush as one.

Only the Molué veterans will manage to get on. The daring ones will even climb in, neck first, through the open bus windows.

Head butts, blows, heavy shoving and even Mama Gbogburo kind of bites were deployed to gain access on to these potential death traps.

Ìgbatí! Ìgbámî!

But that was Lagos life. Na so e be.

 Sometimes, you could see the triumphant look on the faces of those who had finally managed to get a foothold on the doorsteps of the bus as it sped off, the conductor running after it, taking a last desperate leap on to the tailgate. 

The Molué bus conductor never missed that last step!

How not? 

“He must be using juju" I always marvelled to myself.

Soo, on that fateful morning, I was getting desperate.

I therefore made up my mind, that I was getting on the next Molué, come sun, come rain!

A few minutes later, my waterloo, or near death, arrived.

"Eko eko! eko eko! Yaba ma wole o! to'ba ni changi , ma wole o!" the scruffy looking conductor sang as he hopped off, dramatically.

Thinking I was smart, I did not rush with the "hooligans" to force my way in.

I waited till the last minute and then squeezed on to the last space on the steps as the bus driver started up the engine. 

Phew! "I made it" I smiled to myself in triumph, almost patting myself on the back.

Then shompokelete! happened!

"Duro duro! durooooo!" the conductor was shouting, hanging on to my jacket sleeve as he sought to get a foot on to a non-existent space.

All the doorstep veterans were holding on to something or somebody to secure themselves, except me, ègbè boy, that was holding on to my fake snakeskin office bag.

Before I could say “mummy”, the bastard conductor had yanked me off the steps and I was back on the road, floundering to get my feet balance.

However, falling over on the bustop's pavement was not my immediate problem at that moment;

The real disaster was that, while I was now outside on the road, my silk tie was still stuck inside, among the crushed bodies of sweating and swearing passengers. 

And the bloody Molué had slowly started to move!

Yawa!

As the tie started tightening around my neck like a hangman's noose, I instinctively jogged with the bus, so the tie no go choke me to death.

I began to jog with the Molué, my silikì tie wedged inside the stupid bus!

The screams and shoutings of other stranded passengers at the bus-top finally caught the attention of the Yèyé conductor.

The conductor now reached in and yanked the offending tie free from between one woman's fat yansh and a sack of onions.

Hmmmmmmmmmm

The sudden separation from my near coffin, no projected me forward and I landed in a heap on the pavement near a gutter, one of my polished black cord shoes rolling gently on to the busy Ikorodu road.

People were rushing to help my sorry ajebutter ass.

"It will not better for Moremi Unilag girls" I mumbled, as I dusted myself down, avoiding the pity gaze of fellow passengers.

"LSTC bus it shall be, even if na the whole 50kobo" I told myself as I calculated how to retrieve my shoe on Ikorodu Road......

Part 2 TO BE CONTINUED 

©️ Mazi Abe and friends 2020.

...Earlier, I was gisting you about that faithful morning, when it was my sister Kofo's birthday, that I put on my correct suit and tie to work, got my neck tie caught on the door of a molue bus, fell over and eventually took the LSTC bus to work. 

Remember? I rarely do continuations, deliberately cutting the stories short for the main books, but I dey good mood today, so enjoy.

.......Eventually, I dusted myself off, retrieved my shoe from the busy Ikorodu road and got on the next LSTC bus that stopped at Obanikoro bus stop.

The bus ride to Lagos Island was uneventful and by the time I got off at Broad street by Balogun, my mood had improved and I had forgotten about the earlier, near catastrophic event, almost losing my neck in the battle of Molué.

As I cut through Ofin street at Apongbon, to get on to Broad street, I made a mental note to come and visit my best friend, Monsuru Lawal, at 33 Ofin street during my lunch break.

I had the hots for his younger sister, Modinat, so, showing up in my correct suit and tie should definitely make a stronger impression than the usual ankara top over jeans and Hausa slippers ensemble, I hoped.

The Union Bank Registrars office was situated on the top floor of high market No 1 Broad street, and as I got into the lift, I could literally feel the admiring glances from colleagues. I felt cool.

"Mr Idris, you are late" muttered my boss, as I made a grand entrance into the office hall of about 10 workers.

"I am sorry sis, transportation problems".

She glanced up and did a double take "Aaah! aaah! Mr Idris, what are we celebrating o?" she teased, admiring my cocky poise in baggy trousers suit and knotted silk tie. I felt cooler.

I just smiled back, nodded at my colleagues and resumed the counting and manual recording of share certificates that were piled up on my desk.

"Justice Atanda Williams, 300, 000 shares in PZ" I muttered to myself, wondering how he managed to acquire so much as a judge, as I recorded yet another "government magic" revelation that I had been stumbling upon in the dusty, inner dark rooms of a conniving and aiding bank.

But corruption was the least on my mind that Friday mid-morning. I kept glancing at my Timex® wristwatch, licking my lips in anticipation of my upcoming afternoon events ; seeing Modinat and then later, Kofo’s Unilag friends.

I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Or one suit, if you like.

First, I will give them a swashbuckling entrance at Ofin Street, when I visit Monsuru, hoping his sister, the delectable Modinat will be standing outside.

And then of course, my climax performance will be when I arrive home to Kofo and her posh Unilag friends, dancing and eating in the living room.

"I hope that Valerie mixed-race beauty is there o" I smiled to myself, gleefully rubbing my hands together.

Then it was 1:00 pm. Ghen ghen!! Action time.

"See you later, my sister" I winked at my boss, dashing out of the room. She smiled back, not looking too happy that I didn't hang back to flirt with her a bit, as I normally did during lunch. She was a bit of alright, but her high pitched Ibadan accent always put me off, plus I had bigger fish to fry that afternoon jare! 

I wasn't ready to waste my suit and silk tie pitching my tent with some glorified Molete local bush meat, when I had Ikoyi and Victoria Island ajebutters waiting for me in Obanikoro.

Ok, Modinat was not exactly an ajebutter, but Ofin street was on the Island too ké! I reasoned to myself, plus I had always marvelled at the amount of beautiful and polished girls that lurked behind the crawny streets and uncompleted buildings of Apongbon, Tinubu, Gbamgbose, Tokunbo, Isale-eko etc.

Anyways, by the time I got on to Ofin from Broad street that afternoon, I had changed my walk to James Bond stepping.

Shoulders bent to a 30 degree angle, I slowed down and was giving them one shoe step at a time "ka! kó! ka! ko! ka! ko!”

Walahi! I could have sworn I heard clapping from all those girls selling wholesale provisions of Peak® milk and St Louis® sugar along the way, but I was too wrapped up in my James Bond delusion to even look up and wave at my admirers. 😎😎

Even Daddy Freeze and his big mouth no get admirers reach me that day.

Finally, I arrived at my first abode of conquest for the day, No 33 Ofin street, Lagos Island!

Haaa!

33 was written boldly gadågbá, in red paint, on a white washed uncompleted building, by the narrow but ever busy Ofin street. You can't miss it.

 Ofin street was always bustling with street traders, foot traders, shoppers, drug peddlars, runners, òmolanke pushers, hand truck pushers, hawkers with different wares on their heads, shouting out whatever it was that they were selling.

Ofin street was one big Lagos market road.

You needed a certain amount of skill and dexterity to manoeuvre on Ofin street. Bumping into each other on Ofin streeet was a normal thing.

However, if you were not sharp or Ofin streetwise, you will end up in the gutters, or dirty water filled potholes of Ofin street.

I visit Monsuru quite often from the Mainland, so I liked to believe that I was Ofin streetwise to an extent, but I had never visited in a trendy, baggy suit, Vangils® shirt, silk tie and stiletto shoes. 

Boy! I was complete on Ofin street that Friday afternoon. I was smoking! Not cigar o. As in smoking hot!

Sooo, I made sure I negotiated every pothole and gutter on Ofin street with due care, or caution!

"The fear of Ofin street gutters is the beginning of wisdom" I continually whispered to myself, avoiding an oncoming Ovaltine and bread seller to my right. "Who drinks hot chocolate in this hot afternoon sun?" I thought to myself, ducking under some dangerous building rods that were coming straight for my eyes!

Phew!

Then I saw her. The cynosure of my eyes for the past 3 months. Aaaah! Modinat was beautiful ejoooor! I will describe her beauty in much detail in the book later. Make I finish this story here.

She was standing right in front of number 33 Ofin street, a paragon of natural, but simple beauty. Her face lit up when she saw me, an extra glint joined her eyes when she took in my sharp set-up with one sweep of her oloju ede eyes... I smiled back in greeting, getting ready to negotiate the last gutter before I walked in to her open arms and warm embrace.

Then disaster struck.......

🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️

 From the other side of the road, one bastard òmòlanke hand truck pusher was throttling down towards me at full speed. As an Ofin street veteran, I had seen the òmòlanke out of the corner of my eye and sharply stepped to a safe corner. 

However, what I had not noticed, because she was no imminent danger to me, was the street hawker with a pot of hot asàro yam pottage and the side bowl of fried stew and meat, balanced precariously on her head, with the mandatory 6 month old child tied to her back.

It all happened in the flash of a second!

Omolànke pusher banked his hand truck to avoid something. Then his wares of building materials tilted out of the truck and hit Auntie àlà‘sàro, who lost balance, lurched forward and her potful delicacy of yam pottage and bowl of fried stew plus meat, tipped over and landed right on top of me.

Haaaa!! 😫😫😫😫

Abiodun Idris, James Bond 007 at the beginning of Ofin street, was now Abe Àsàro 007; shaken and stirred!

Chai! 🙆🏽‍♂️🙆🏽‍♂️🙆🏽‍♂️🙆🏽‍♂️

I jus stood still in shock, like Sojà Idumota. 

The statue even seemed to be staring mockingly at me from across the road by Idumota bridge.

Comman see commotion everywhere!

“Haaa! èpèlè! èmabinú! bring water!”

Modinat was obviously embarrassed for me, but also apologetic :

“Buoda Abe, è pelè. Lezz go inside”

As she led my shameful self into their horo compound, she paused :

“Buoda Abe, wait, lemme remove this”

And she bent down to remove one stew soaked shàkí from the bottom of my trouser’s turn-up.

That was when I burst into tears 😭😭😭😭...

To Be Continued....

Part 3: Kofo and her ajebutter friends waiting for me in Obanikoro in my Àsàro soaked suit 🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️

©️ Mazi Abe and Friends 2020

*** You can enjoy it better by reading Part 1 from my previous post.