This is an excerpt from a 2014 article.
Oh my home (2x) when shall I see my home?
(Ireti, give me food o)
When shall I eat iyan ati egusi? (pounded yam and a local soup)
I will never forget ponmo (cowhide)
My last trip to Lagos was my best ever. The song above was our marching song in school when holidays drew near. So many thoughts were flowing through my mind as I entered Lagos three weeks ago on a beautiful rainy Friday morning. The first thing I did was to enter a buka and order for a hot plate of rice. Don’t they sell rice up North? Of course yes, but I had missed the Lagos version, the one with supergeti (spaghetti), dodo (fried plantain) and inu eran (organ meat).
Seeing my bags, they sensed I was coming from a journey, trust Lagosians, questions flowed:
'Kaabo, nibo lo n ti n bo?’ (Welcome, where are you coming from?)
‘Ilu oke’ (Up North)
‘Ah, ah! Ki lo wa de bẹ?’ (Ah, ah! What took you there?)
‘Iṣẹ naa nii’ (Work)
Then the classic question: ‘Boko Haram nko?’
‘Nwọn ti de ọdọ wa’ (They have not reached our side yet).
‘Ok o. A dupe lowo Ọlọrun.’ (Thank God)
By this time, I’ve logged out, concentrating on my plate of food. I finished, paid and took a cab to my destination, appreciating Fashola’s impact as the car wormed its way through the busy roads. I wanted to condense the two years absence from Lagos into the five days I had for the Sallah break and catch up on so many things and people I had missed over the years.
I live in the Middle Belt and enter Abuja regularly. Abuja is a wonderful, well-organized and sophisticated city but I don’t feel it like I feel Lagos. To taste out of its cornucopia of pleasures, your pocket must be loaded. In Abuja, you are either rich or poor and citizens there live at two polar points unlike Lagos.
I dare say that any Nigerian who has not been to Lagos is missing out. Is it because I grew up in there? No. To me, Lagos is made up of 36 states and has diverse ethnicities resident just like New York. It’s only in Lagos you can wake up hungry, naked and homeless and you can eat, buy clothes, buy your house things in the traffic. 'Gidi is known for traffic, traffic where if you had a stove, you can decide to cook ‘Olo one’ beans in your car and by the time, the beans is done, you’ve not moved up to 5km from where you were.
It has this teeming spontaneous vibe of creativity. When I went shopping, the seller showed me a halter-neck top and wanting to encourage me to buy, said: ‘Madam, you fit use this top fry plantain for your Oga.’ I couldn’t help laughing as the scenario was so hilarious. I would leave your mind to answer if I bought the top or not.
My sojourn came to a climax with my trip to the beach with my siblings. But one incident tried to make me regret coming to Lagos: I forgot my travelling bag in the bus that took me to the park from where I would return to the north. It took another 4 hours to retrieve it.
Phew! I eventually got my bag back and arrived at my station safely, only to get to the office and my colleagues refused to shake my hands (Ebola scare)! Despite it all, I enjoyed my trip tremendously.
Till I come again.
Eko Akete! Long live Lagos! Eko o ni baje!
. But I will assume you eventually bought the cloth, you may decide to to respond to that.