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.

 

Hello everyone, how is your day going? There is something that has been bothering me lately and I felt I should talk about it. But first, let's be honest, do Laycon Fans really like him genuinely? I don't think so.

Ever since Laycon came into the BBN, it's been from one talk to another about his relationships, most notably about Erica. Arguably, Laycon has the largest fan base of all the contestants this year, but most of his fans are not actually in love with Laycon because of his content.

Icons are only in support of their man because of sentiments. When he first came into the show, they saw a man that everybody insulted, some even called him a potential thief and a tout. It was these insults that made fans begin to ask questions about him, and decided to support him, to show the others that someone that is not facially handsome can still win the BBnaija.

They have successfully portrayed him as a man who needs pity votes. If this is a deliberate attempt by the Laycon handlers to swing votes to their Favour, I think they have largely been successful, as most supporters of Laycon do so due to pity. Most of them do not even watch the show to know who and who has content.

But then, this is an open discussion. If you disagree with my opinion, please respectfully state yours without insulting anyone in the comment section. We are all here to learn from one another. Thank you.