The incidence I want to recount happened about 15 years ago.
I was a first year student in the college of education and I had promised never
to deny myself any of the fun that higher institution presented, except for cultism. So I
had a girlfriend, I joined students discuss, I contested and won students
association offices, I joined the press, I visited the library, skipped
lectures, sang, danced, joined the Red
Cross, attended social and religious gatherings and all others that caught my
fancy; and of course, I went for the rag-day.
I was living in the same hostel with an area sister and
other friends, mostly from Ibadan. So, when the guys suggested that we go to
Ibadan for the rag-day I was all in for the fun and the prospect of higher
earning from the ‘Aro’ endeavour. We left for Ibadan dressed in rags, or what
we’ve made our clothes to become. We turned our shirts inside out, painted our
faces in talc and with powdered coal. I was dressed in a white shirt with the
left arm ripped off and the other sleeve folded up my arm. I wore a sandal on my
right foot and a tattered shoe on the left, it’s a pity I never had a snapshot
in those bizarre dressing. We all packed at least a t-shirt for change at the
end of the day. All the spare shirts were cramped in a small ‘shuttle’ bag
which one of us strapped to his back as part of the ‘crazy’ dressing.
Once we alighted at Ojoo, we headed for Orita Merin, a busy
part of the capital city with about three or four adjoining markets. We were
all trooping together, until at a point somebody suggested that we split up and
converge at the ‘Itamerin’ after about an hour. The market was so large and
complex that I found it hard making a mental note of the shops and shed which
all look alike. I navigated several paths and visited several market women some
of whom dropped old coins into the hungry throat of my can piggy-bank. I was not
sure whether I overstayed the one hour mark we set, or I missed the junction
where we were meant to converge. Or better still, the other guys forgot that I
was unfamiliar with Ibadan. In a
nutshell, I waited for about three more hours around the big market roaming at
first and later asking if the people sighted other students dressed like I was.
Before long, I was beginning to cast the figure of a nuisance, so I decided to
move on. But, to where? I had no spare shirt.
I remembered that one of my hostel mate said he stayed in
Apata area of Ibadan. During one of the usual discussion in the hostel, he said
is house was bordered by a new shopping complex with a shoe maker shed at the
junction. I pried open my can and picked the few Naira notes in it, I headed
for Apata. To my utter dismay Apata was not a small locality, there were
several junctions and many shopping complexes. I was confused, and at that
point I became very tired. Just then, I remembered that my friend and secondary
school classmate, Gbenga Olatunde was studying at the college of Agric around
Apata, I headed for his school. Remember, there was no GSM then. After several inquiries I located my friend and he was happy but surprised to see me. He mocked
me a while and offered me food. I layed on his bed to relax a little before I
decide on what next to do.
I woke up 6 a.m the following morning.I was so weak, but the fact that I've slept through the night baffled me, I was asleep for about 12 hours. The rag-day was over but I was still dressed in my rags. I headed for the car pack with the hope of catching an early bus back to Oyo but there was none around. As such, I must get to Ojoo or Iwo road before I could get a bus to Oyo. After begging about a hundred drivers I got a free ride to Sango. The ride was one of the most humiliating in my life. I sat on the engine compartment and all the passengers saw me as a dirty beggar, or so I think. They made condescending remarks and hissed all through the short journey.
I had 19 pieces of N1 coins in my can but the fare to Oyo from Sango was N20, then. After much persuasion I reached an arrangement with the driver to give him the N1 balance when we got to Oyo, which I did, for my house was just by the road side.
Most of my hostel-mates came back to school the following day, but I fell sick immediately I alighted from the bus. I couldn't stand up for two days. It appeared that all of us went our separate ways and got back to school separately. My area sister who did not follow us on the 'pilgrimage' asked of me and the guys could not give a cogent answer. They assumed I was with one of them but the bubble burst when the last man returned and I was not in his company. They got scared!
On the third day, I got up and out. As I sat watching the traffic I noticed some people peeping from behind a building across the road and the faces and movement appeared familiar. It was my friends trying to spy maybe I was home or thinking of how to tell my mum I was missing. They could not sight me from their position but I was seeing them. After a while, they sent my girlfriend to stroll by.
"E kasan ma" she greeted my mum who had sensed her discomfort from afar.
"Ah! Sisi mi bawo ni? How are you?" my mum greeted her.
She hesitated for a while, grinning like a kid trying to laugh it's way through an act (we use to call her laughing gas, back in the secondary school). My mum did not helped her plight as she kept quiet looking at her with an intense so-what-can-I-do-for-you gaze. I was almost bursting with laughter as I watched her from behind the window blind.
"I just said I should say hello to you, I was just passing by" Nike said after a while.
"Oh! That's good. So who are your friends you were peeping with from across" she asked. Nike was taken aback, she did not expect such question.
"No o, I was just.."
'Just what?' my mum interrupted her.
"Yinka is inside o. I know that's why you are here. And greet Odun for me o, So pe won ku itoju wa o"
At that point I stepped out and I could feel a greet wave of relief flush through the poor girl. She gave me a scolding look and dragged me away. I returned to school the following week to opprobrium from my hostel mates and neighbours.
It was one event in my life I don't think I'll forget in haste, at least not when those bizarre-dressed boys and girls run around town on rag-day.
