For a newcomer, you’ll would wish in a corner of your heart you had the prowess to quell this mad town! Coming from a relatively quiet Portharcourt where the aroma of roasted bole and fish was what hovered in the air, looking for nostrils to torment until you yield to the irrestible urge.
Bolanle kept urging me to leave the city whose arms I learnt all that I knew and come to lagos, boastfully she would say “Boys your age are making good money and you are still in Portharcourt waiting to get your hands on an illusive oil money. Come to the city where everybody hustles”.
I joined that night bus, sandwiched between a snoring woman whose snores where like a distorted sound from a broken violin and a baby who cried to the point I was convinced she was possessed. Lagosians don’t hustle, they chase shadows and bask in a mantra they seem to have loved years long before I ever stepped my feet on it which says “One day I go hammer” hammer a word they coined to mean rich, affluence or famous. The glaring truth they decided to put to bed was that nobody in lagos is rich! They all get stuck in the long never-ending traffic while the perceived poor and the rich inhales the carbon monoxide infested air.
I told Bolanle I would not last, I knew I was not good at these guarded insanity. She reminds of the illusive ‘hammer’ that awaits me if I stayed a bit longer, I was keen on leaving before the hammer turns and smash my head to pulp.
I had jumped down from a bus, grabbed the conductor by his shirt as we gifted ourselves blows to the face to the amusement of passerby’s who had gathered to watch. “Iya la anybody! Ogbeni kill am for there!” someone from the crowd had screamed and it shook me back to realisation. I was now like them, like the average lagosian who spews profanity at any slightest provocation and ready to go on a punch feast at all times. It was then it dawned on me that I had to leave sooner than planned before the city plants its seed in my sub-consciousness
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