My Own Beginning - By Uncle Bola
Adey Oyenuga
THE earliest thing I remember in my life is the birth of a child. It was
not my own birth. We were living in Minna, the present capital of Niger
State. I do not know exactly how old I was then, but I was a child,
probably four or five years of age. I remember that I was quite plump
and wearing a long buba dress. Dele, my younger brother, had been born,
because I remember him holding tight to our mother’s wrapper that
afternoon wanting to be carried by Mama. There were a few people
entering and coming out of our parlour and I remember a woman with a
huge stomach, half naked, sort of groaning. There was a much older lady
standing over her, and I saw someone taking in an orogun from the
kitchen on the other side of the compound. I and some other children,
and even adults, were told not to come in. But I managed to get into the
parlour just about the time the child uttered its first cry to announce
its arrival in this world. I was excited to see this little baby, almost
lifeless, on blood-soaked cloth. It was quickly lifted up by this old
lady who, I think, must be the mother of my sister-in-law, Aduke. Two
razor-sharp cane blades were applied to a long coil of flesh, and as it
snipped the child yelled again. The cry sounded beautiful to me. Just
then, Mama noticed that I was there, and sent me out with a smack on my
bottom. Dele was clinging close to her.
My parents had arrived in Minna not long after Dele had been born. I
think we got to Minna about 1933. My father, Solomon Ige, had joined the
Nigerian Railways Department, as it was then called, about 1916 at
Osogbo. From then on till 1941 when he was drafted into the Army in
Kaduna, he and Mama practically lived at all the important railway
stations between Osogbo and Kaduna. I know for certain that they lived
in Osogbo, Offa, Zungeru, Baro, Kushi Minna, Serikin Pawa and Kaduna.
But Minna was the first place I knew in my life.
There were five of us living in this room-and-parlour accommodation in a
fairly big compound, not too far from the local Roman Catholic Church
and school. I was never enrolled in that school, although I used to go
near the school to her the children sing during morning assemblies or
reciting the multiplication table under a tree in the school compound.
The school was just one building - a low small hall painted yellow on
the outside with a black paint strip, by the foundation. Our
room-and-parlour accommodation opened into a big yard; some other
people’s room-and-parlour accommodation also did. The room and parlour
were small, probably 10 feet by 10 each. Papa, Mama and Dele slept in
the room. Sister Oni and I slept in the parlour together with whichever
visitors were lodging with my parents. There seemed to be many of them,
almost always women staying for two or three days and then disappearing
with bags of food stuffs to God-knows-where. I did not know from where
they came. But my mother was always nice to them, and they always
brought pieces of paper which my mother would ask the nearest available
schoolboy to read if Papa was not in.
Papa was not always in. He would disappear for a few days and then
return. He was always wearing some uniform, and a facing cap. Whenever
he returned, he would tell Mama about Baro and Zungeru and about guards,
Esems and Esesems and Teeteecees. I was told that he rode in trains
often, the type that brought us and our luggage from Kushi to Minna.
There were three persons that I remember people used to talk about in
our house in Minna. There was Baba Moradeke, whose wife used to come to
our house. She was much younger than Mama whom she used to call Iya
Folorunso when one young lady was not around; whenever that young lady
was around, for reasons which I did not know till about eight years
later, she called mama Iya George. Why Mama was called Iya Folorunsho/or
Iya George I did not know, because the three of us living with her were
her children, as far as I was concerned, Sister Oni I knew, because she
looked after me and Dele and was very nice - always cheerful, always
playing, always giving us good food, and even carrying me on her back
whenever she took me out on an errand and I said I could not walk. She
was a big girl - the biggest I had ever seen or known - even though she
is only six years older than me. She was the only sister I knew. Dele of
course was there. Tomboyish like me, but never letting Mama go. Mama
liked him very much. She always gave him whatever he asked for,
especially if he happened to accompany the requests with those weepy
cries for which he became famous in our home in Minna and Kaduna. He was
called Sam.
Baba Moradeke, as we heard, was a very rich man in Minna. He had
arrived in Minna years before as an itinerant trader of textiles and
household goods. Later he did sufficiently well that he bought a house
in Minna and had a big shop. He had plenty of money. But he was also a
sick man - “dry cough”, they said. Accompanied by shivering. It was
about three or four years later, while we were in Kaduna, that I heard
that this wealthy man died. That he was a relation of ours. And that for
some time before he died, he enjoyed his wealth by warming himself with
small fires made out of currency notes! We heard that he was the richest
man in Minna in his time. He left two daughters, Titi and Moradeke, whom
I met more than ten years after I had seen their mother at our place in
Minna. It was then, at Ibadan, that I knew that Moradeke was my cousin;
her mother was my mother’s cousin.
The other man that I remember being spoken of was Abu Bakare. He too was
said to be a trader in those parts. I never saw him, but many years
later - during the sixties - I realised that Abu Bakare was the father
or late Chief S.B. Bakare of Ijesa Lodge, Ikoyi, Lagos. My parents knew
both father and son.
The other person talked about was Iya Aduke. They were always wondering
where she got so much energy from - travelling to various places to buy
and sell. She had only one child living - Aduke - but she was not
bothered like other women about the number of children she had. I
remember seeing her on the day that child was born. But I did not know
that she was a cousin to both my parents.
In Minna, our neighbours were called Tapa. The women were always dressed
in layers of wrappers and colourful headgears. They sold rice mostly.
There were Gwaris, but not as many as the Tapa. Or so I thought.
There were many Tapa women in the compound where we lived in Minna. They
were often coming in and going out of our own parlour. With big enamel
bowls filled with rice which they always brought to Minna to buy or
sell. They wee always cracking jokes with Mama and Papa, although
occasionally one of them would storm out of the parlour with her bowl of
rice, looking at mama as if she should hit her. But there were no
scuffles. After a few minutes, the angry Tapa would return, and ask mama
to “bring the money.” Mama would then ask whether the Tapa had scooped
some rice and hidden it away during the few minutes she had been out. A
new round of haggling and measuring with mudu would begin. After Mama
had satisfied herself that what was brought back was what had been taken
out, she would turn to one of the corners in the parlour and bring out
from under the folds of the clothes she was wearing a long snaky cloth
pouch, undo a knot and gently push some little bundle out. She would
quickly re-tie her wrapper round her waist, count some coins and give to
the Tapa woman, who then left happily.
I loved Mama. She was a beautiful woman. She seemed to me very big then.
She was fair in complexion, and her face was always bright. She had
three long strokes as marks on each of her cheeks, but it was as if she
had been born with them. She had a beautiful set of white teeth at that
time. She had some tattoos on her forearms and her shin. It was when I
started schooling in Kaduna that I realised that what she had as
tattooed on her arms and legs were “Emily Adeola Omo Adesina” “Solomon
Ige Oko mi” meaning “Emily Adeola daughter of Adesina” and “Solomon Ige
my husband” . There was nothing she could do about being her father’s
daughter, but she certainly was announcing to the world that she had
stamped herself with my father for life, was she not? There could never
be a greater act of loyalty or fidelity than for a woman to burnish into
her being her husband. Mama was like that. She loved Papa with her whole
being - with her soul and her body. Papa was not God, but Mama treated
papa with reverence and respect accorded to gods. It was not a surprise
that Papa in turn loved Mama very much, and there was nothing Mama
wanted him to do which he did not do. I never saw them fight or even
shout at each other. Never. I understand some husbands shout at their
wives. I do not know how to shout at any woman at all.
But what I loved best about Mama was her head of hair. She had a big
crown of shiny silken black hair which, whenever she left unplaited,
cascaded down to her shoulders. It was so soft and nice, and I liked
running my fingers through it every time it was loose. She liked
plaiting it, and then it would come out in long braids, either pako
elede or suku or kolese. Up till she died at the age of 83 on 8 January
1979, she still had long, black, beautiful, soft, silky hair. She did
not have as many as a dozen of grey hairs on her head even at that age.
She always took very great care of her body, especially her head, face
and eyes which until she died were never for one day deprived of their
beautiful lines of antimony.
The next thing that I remember was that we arrived in Kaduna. I do not
know the exact date, but it must have been either late in 1935 or in the
first month of 1936. I just found that we were in this strange town
which was different from Minna. There were far more people, and there
were very few Tapa. Our new compound was also different. We were living
in a compound built out of the triangular corner piece between Prince
Edward’s Way and Lagos Road which led northwards to Kaduna market. South
of our house there were very few houses, and they were all grass
thatch-roof. There were high trees on both sides of the road which led
from Prince Edward’s Way southwards to Kaduna Junction. Our compound
contained three blocks of accommodation. A long row of about four
rooms-and-parlours which opened to Prince Edward’s Way; that one was
roofed with corrugated iron-sheets. The two other blocks which had just
one-room accommodations opened into the big yard of the compound, one
along the northern boundary wall, and the other along the wall by Lagos
Road. These two were thatch-roofed. The toilets-one room saga and
another enclosure a bathroom - were near the southernmost tip of the
compound, quite far away from the main area of life.
My parents’ room-and-parlour accommodation faced prince Edward’s Way,
and I was amazed to see people in long trousers sitting on and pedalling
some contraptions which moved in groups, and occasionally singly past
our house, most of them southwards in the mornings, and northwards in
the afternoons. On some nights, large numbers of these pedalled machines
had lamps on, and bells tinkled from them when they were near
pedestrians. It was in Kaduna that I first saw bicycles.
Papa did not own one. None of his friends who often came to call him out
to go southwards had a bicycle. Every morning and evening they trudged
to and from Kaduna Junction station where they worked. I noticed that
most of the people who rode bicycles also wore trousers, long-sleeved
shirts and coats. Some would fold their coats and lay them on the
bicycle frame. They also wore shoes, most of which were canvas white
shoes. A few wore helmets - and they seemed to be made only in two
colours, white and khaki brown. Soon we children were able to
distinguish the khaki brown helmets of sanitary inspectors. They had
metal pennants on them. I learnt that those who rode bicycles were
second class clerks, first class clerks and Ayceecees. It was some years
later that I learnt that Ayceecess were that rare, powerful and feared
breed in the Colonial Service, A-C-C, Assistant Chief Clerk. We heard
that some one was an Ayceecee in the Secretariat in Kaduna, but none of
us in our school knew who he was. We would not go near his house because
we were certain that he had dogs in his Quarters, like Europeans.
There were not many children in our house, and those that were would
almost always be found either crying or sleeping or gesticulating from
their mothers backs to which they were strapped. The way these little
children were carried was different from how Sister Oni would carry me
whenever I went out with her and I said I was tired. She would kneel
down and ask me to climb on her back; she would then get up slowly while
I held tight to her chest with my arms, and her waist and stomach with
my legs. She would then support my buttocks with her two hand which she
clasped together behind her. These little ones were snug inside
wrappers, and bands were tied round below their buttocks and knotted on
the bellies of those who carried them. While my hands and feet were
always free on Sister Oni’s back, I could not see the hands and feet of
these children. Only their heads popped out of these tight bags in which
they seemed to be enveloped. I asked why I and Dele were not carried
like those babies; Sister Oni said we used to be carried like them
before. I asked if she would carry me like that again; she said my feet
would show though her clothes.
I think everybody in that compound was Hausa. Except one man who
was called Yan-miri when he was not in. I did not know why they called
him that name behind his back. He was a young man and lived alone.
Whenever he was going out in the morning he would lock his door with a
giant padlock, and in the evening he would sit by his door singing in a
language that was definitely not Hausa. If it was Hausa I would know
because that was what every one in our compound spoke, including Mama
and Papa. But Kaduna Hausa was different from Minna Hausa. The Hausa
that Minna people spoke were different because the people wee different,
I thought. Just like Mama and Papa who occasionally included some Yoruba
words in their Hausa. In Minna, I once heard mama say: -bo, mi ko kawo
in ganni. And those Tapa people in Minna would sometimes speak to each
other in a language which I did not understand. I used to wonder whether
everyone spoke two languages always - Hausa and one other, as we, that
is Papa, Mama, me, Dele and those visitors, spoke Yoruba at home.
This Yan-miri hardly spoke to anyone, and when he did it was in pidgin
English. That was what everybody spoke when you did not speak Hausa.
Papa, Mama, Sister Oni and I had been speaking it from Minna. But in
this compound only Yan-miri spoke it. And whenever we answered him in
Hausa, he would turn to go. I thought he was afraid of talking to
people. First, he would sing in some strange language. And now when you
spoke Hausa to him he would go away. I thought he was strange, and I was
afraid of him. Whenever he offered me alewa - sugar-cane licoricee - to
come to him, I would run away and cry. Once when he made as if he was
going to run after me to catch me, I was so frightened that I stumbled
as I rushed into our parlour and fell. He quickly rushed to pick me up;
and as he lifted me up in his strong arms, I yelled and bit him. I
flailed my arms at him and called “Sister, Sister, this man wants to
kill me.” I thought he would then leave me alone. But he did not. Even
when Sister Oni came to my rescue, he refused to hand me over. He
proceeded to carry me towards his room on the other side of the yard. I
struggled but he held tight to me. Sister Oni merely followed us. I
thought that rather strange, because I expected her to pluck me out of
the arms of this man.
When we got to his room he put me down, and said,
“Why you dey run from me?”
I could not answer. I was breathing hard. I held out my hands in
supplication towards Sister Oni and said in Hausa:
“Please take me away. Please take me away.”
Sister Oni came nearer and told me not to be afraid, and that the man
was not a bad man. Yan-miri began to smile at me, and to wipe my nose
which was now running with mucus. He soon gained my confidence. He
offered me alewa. I accepted with thanks - prostrating as mama and Papa
had taught me - but I was afraid to eat it. My chest no longer heaved. I
looked at him again, and I thought he looked very nice. He was bigger
than Sister Oni. I looked round. There was a bed in the room, much
smaller than the one Papa and Mama slept. There was a table and a chair,
with some books. There was a table and a chair, with some books. There
was a lantern on the table. I looked at him again. He smiled. I thought
he was a kind man. Then he said:
‘Wetin be your name?”
I replied: Sunana James”,
He said: “Wetin you say?”
I replied: “Na che suna na James”.
He said: “Your name is James?”
I nodded yes.
He then asked: “Wetin be your brother him name?”
I answered: “Sunan shi Sam”.
Then he said: “You go be my friend. Make you no dey run when you see me.
I no de chop person”.
As he drew me to himself, and I did not resist, I asked him gently: “Ka
san suna na yanzu; nka fa, sunan ka Yanmiri?”
As soon as I said that Sister Oni ran out. I did not know why. The next
thing I saw was mama behind Sister Oni. She came in as Yanmiri was
asking me! “Wetin you den talk about Yanmiri?” I then gently touched his
chest and said: “You, your name Yan-miri?”
He was horrified, and got up immediately. Before he could say anything
mama had got to me; she held me by the left ear and, twisted it, said in
Yoruba: “Where did you learn words of abuse from? Who told you about
Yanmiri?”
Before I could say anything Mama had administered two slaps on my
buttocks and was dragging me out. As I struggled on behind her, I
yelled: “I heard these people (pointing to the other ‘Hausas’ in the
yard) call him Yanmiri. I thought it was this man’s name...”
When we got to our parlour, mama asked who taught me abusive words; did
I not know that Yanmiri was an abusive word for Kobokobo. I asked what
was the meaning of Kobokobo; she said those who did not speak Hausa and
Yoruba. She then warned me never to abuse anyone as to wherever he came
from because the world is a big place for everybody, and we must help
people, not abuse them. She then threatened me that I would be severely
caned if she ever again heard me abuse anybody. She took me back to
Yanmiri, and asked me to prostrate and say “sorry Sir”, which I did. My
mother then said some things I could not quite understand to him.
The following day, Yanmiri took me to the stand-pump near our house and
drew a small pail of water for me. We became friends. Until he left
about a year later, I used to play in his parlour. At first I spoke
Hausa to him; he spoke pidgin English to me, until about six months
later when both of us could speak either Hausa or pidgin English to each
other.
After that first encounter with him, I was never hold enough to ask his
name. He never told me his name. But he told me that he was neither
Gambari nor Ngbati. When I asked him what Ngbati meant he said Yoruba,
and Gambari he said meant Hausa people. I could not understand.
Then I asked, “Wetin you be if you no be Hausa or Yoruba?”
He replied: “I be Ibo”.
Then I said: “Na Ibo people den dey call Yanmiri?”
Before he could answer, I remembered Mama’s warning. I quickly
prostrated, and said “I sorry Sir, My Mama don tell me make I no abuse
people. I beg, make you no tell mama, I beg Sir.”
He held me gently by the hand, and said in halting Hausa: “I won’t tell
your mother. I know Hausa and Yoruba people call us Ibo Yanmiri”. Then
he added in pidgin English: “Yanmiri be give me water”.
I asked whether I was to give him water. He said: “No, James. Yanmiri e
be Ibo word for ‘Give me water’ I now understood a little. But should I
ask what Ngbati and Gambari meant in Ibo too? I decided I had better
not. He then said to me:
“James, in your school, you go see all kin’ people. No abuse anybody. Na
God make everybody. No abuse anybody o.”
That God bit was a little beyond me. But about my school, I had seen
there were very many children, big boys and big girls. Small boys and
small girls too. Then there were our teachers - all very big men. Big
white men too. I had also seen some white women, clad from head to toe
in white, with only their pink faces showing in their nuns dress. Yes, I
was seeing all kinds of people. Mama had told me not to abuse anybody,
so I would not. And even if I wanted to, I was afraid of those bigger
boys and girls. And the men too, they would beat me mercilessly. They
might not be nice like Sister Oni. And those white men - I hear they
could lock me up. I never abused anybody in Kaduna. Even after Kaduna,
Up till today, I have not forgotten what mama and Yanmiri told me. I do
not and cannot deal with anybody on the basis of his language or tribe.
I always remember Mama’s admonition and what Yanmiri told me:
“You go see all kin people. No abuse anybody. Na God make everybody. No
abuse anybody o”.
Mama did not allow me or Dele to go wherever we wanted, not even around
the compound. In any case, it was not possible for Dele to go anywhere.
He was wherever mama was. She took him with her everywhere. Sister Oni
was given strict instructions not go into the street, and certainly not
to take me there. The entrance to our room-and-parlour opened into
Prince Edward’s Way, and there seemed to me interminable traffic on that
highway.
Prince Edward’s Way was the most important road in town but it was not
tarred. It was however gravelly, and stones flew whenever an occasional
lorry or pick-up van passed over it. There were very few cars, and when
I was in higher classes in school, we school children used to memorise
the plate numbers of the vehicles we had seen and ask one another
whether they had seen them. It was only when the Emirs began to come to
Kaduna for their meetings that many more cars came to our town.
There was a space of about twenty feet between our house and Prince
Edward’s Way, and before you got to the street, you passed over a
gutter. The gutter was straight, deep and clean. We stepped over slabs
before we got on to the street. We children were told not to go beyond
the slabs. There were electric poles and lights along Kaduna roads. I
had never seen such things before. We did not have such things in Minna.
I noticed that when I looked out of our door one night there was this
line of lights shining, not from heaven like the stars, but from some
posts. I liked the string of lights. It was without end. I saw that
there was one light shining in front of our house. I stole out to look
at it, and to touch the pole. It was metal and tall. The light shone out
from an inverted bowl attached to a long pipe. I looked up the street,
and there were more lights; I looked down the road, and there was this
long line of lights which seemed to disappear in the horizon. That was
the road which led to Kaduna bridge and Kaduna Junction station.
In front of our house, across the road, there stretched an expanse of
grass-land. Only a few big houses could be seen in the middle of this
land. They were very big. It was said that Magajin Gari worked there.
The first time I heard about Magajin Gari was one morning when I heard
some gongs. Sister Oni quickly grabbed me and asked me to follow her. We
went out of the house and to the end of the block where a small crowd
was gathering. Two men were standing in the middle of the growing crowd,
and at intervals one of them would strike his gong with a small iron
rod. There were some men, women and children. When it looked like there
was nobody more coming to join the crowd, the man with the gong struck
again, and then the other said in a loud voice: Magajin Gari Iya gaishe
ku; ya kuma gaishe ku; bayan gisuwa... and then delivered the message.
He put his two palms to his mouth to make himself a megaphone for us to
hear well. When he finished, the man with the gong struck three times
and we dispersed. They went on to the next street, because we heard
their gong, and Sister Oni said they would go from street to street to
deliver the message of the Magajin Gari. As soon as mama arrived from
the market, Sister told her the message; and when Papa came from work in
the evening Mama told him what Sister told her the town crier said the
Magajin Gari told him to tell the people.
It was not long after that I knew who Magajin Gari was. He was the ruler
of Kaduna. He always sat on a round mat of many colours in one of those
big houses across the road from our house. Some other people sat around
him too but not on such a big mat as his. And his babanriga was bigger
than the others. His turban was always big, and I wondered whether he
had a mouth because it was swathed in those turbans. I never saw or
heard him speak. We only saw him from afar, and whenever we went near
the doors to look in more closely, some men in khaki uniform and red
fezzes would whoosh us away. We were told that Magajin Gari was the
biggest man in town. Except the white men, of course. Not the white
reverend fathers of our school. Those were not big men. The big white
men were those whom Magajin Gari went to meet in their offices. We would
see them with the Magajin Gari on Empire Day.
Culled from KADUNA BOY, autobiography of Ige’s early life, published by
NPS Educational Publishers Ltd.
Copyright © 2001 African Newspapers of Nigeria PLC
corresp...@nigerian-tribune.com