By Bamidele Johnson
Until I got to Ibadan yesterday, I didn’t see young men putting stuff on the road to prevent free traffic flow for them to beg motorists for money for a carnival or some year-end gig, the culture around the Yuletide season.
Those I saw were unusually few, didn’t barricade the road and waved just a flex banner to attract attention and beg for money.
It wasn’t until I saw them that I remembered something I particularly hate about this season: The idea that your year-end revelry is the responsibility of others. It is something that makes me red-eyed, especially when its practitioners try to force you to give money with bilge they think are prayers and attempts to butter you up with “My Daddy”, “My Chairman” and “Twale”.
The last one gets my goat the most, especially when two hands go up in what is called “double twale”. I’m unable to understand why people think I want to procure “hailings”. That is what it means if I give out money for being called “Chairman”, which is rendered as “Shiarman”.
One evening about 18 years ago, while driving in Iju, I ran into a group that had dragged tyres across the road to force motorists to stop. A few of them moved to the driver’s side to tell me their objective and started praying profusely. These chaps had beer, which they were drinking straight from the bottle, and cigar-thick mariwana wraps glowing in the dark as they toked on them.
I listened and told them that if they wanted a swell end of the year, they should have been saving and I had nothing to give. I’m no rasta, so I also thought prayers from potheads were impotent. They hailed, cajoled to no avail and had to move the barricade away. As I made to move, insults peppered my ears before I rolled up.
Less than a two hundred meters after, I ran into another group. This one had two masqueraders on stilts (agere). Both leant on by bonnet, while their conductors came to say stuff to me. I refused to roll down my window and pretended not to know what they wanted or heard what they were saying. I was seething and briefly wished I could skittle the ageres out of the way with my car. Of course, that woulda been daft, so I sat still.
One agere joined their conductors to try to speak with me. I rolled down the window and heard him praying. I told him I was Christian and, therefore, had no belief in agere prayers. Of course, I was jiving. He wasn’t offended one bit. But I was minded not to give shishi, didn’t give, I’ve never given and never will-except, perhaps, at gunpoint.
I owe no hedonist the obligation of funding his year end yotomizing (life chopping). Yotomizing is DIY; a self-help project. That is my view. A carnival held two streets away from the one I once lived ended in near-tragedy, when a reveller who’d had too much to drink grabbed a gun and shot another. Adegbamigbe Ademola, Johnson Ayantunji, both former neighbours, must remember the incident on Oronna Street.
Anyway, I’m happy I no longer see them, young people, doing this rubbish. Next to those chaps on my shit list are buskers, who think you’re hungry for “hailings” and rancid renditions of popular tunes when you sit down at an open-hair bistro where your patience is easily expended while waiting for catfish pepper soup. Sing Ade ori okin from now till the October 1, you will get nothing.