A GOBLET OF FIRE I

by Adedoyin Shobo

The people are angry and hungry…

You can see it in the redness of their distorted eyeballs when they look at you.

You can hear it when they gather in little cell units: in the beer parlours, canteens, newspaper stands and religious centres.

There was indeed a natural mystic drifting through this sub-Saharan airspace. The traditional community spirit replaced by an ambition for absolute individualism. The love of money is strongly palpable, even at the expense of the most devious cause.

The local monarchy and religious centres were all plagued alike and filled with cutthroats, convicts both serving jail time and in the ruling parties.

The poignant wave of crime is worn like eyo (ghost mummers festival celebrated in Lagos) mask over the face of the community.

So the people resorted to quick schemes to get out of their perpetual stereotype of poverty. The News feed everyday percolating through town like bad air toting the pathology of urban vices like a two months old baby on her momma’s back.

Spate of kidnap cases, cultism, money ritual, rape, incest, yahoo yahoo (a notorious form of racketeering), armed robbery became more news worthy than the cure to the tropical diseases up-North or technological innovations in the country.

Peons and every frigging Joe bought the evening papers that perennially left one in a sour mood. It was akin to swallowing a purportedly sweet syrup that left a bitter aftertaste. Why we grubbed for the evening Dailies? I can’t truly explain. It was as if people were so addicted to bad news they would crave helplessly for its ‘high.’

Last week it was a set of young men of between 25 and 40 years apprehended by the police. The paper said there were members of a cult dubbed by a tacky name ‘Badoo’

These cultists were reported to have decapitated and dissected their victim’s head. They trafficked their victims’ body organs to highly placed individuals in and around the community. Their patrons were allegedly well-placed in Abuja and Lagos to frustrate the apt execution of the law.

And so like a tragic vestige of a Nollywood screenplay,most  evenings, someone was bound to be mourning or crying over some news in Abule oniru area, Ikorodu.

***

It was evening when I alighted at the bus stop that faced a narrow bushpath that led to centrally located Abule oniru and its neighbours.

The day had gone quite well in spite of the tumultuous journey back home.

The interview had been such a huge success, I was told to resume at an agreed date for my appointment letter. No even a much-too-familiar six-hour gridlock could spoil my joy.

I hopped down from the barely halted danfo bus humming Tupac’s ‘changes’ …something would never change.

I would wend through several street corners before nearing the intersection that led straight to my parent’s house on plot 29, abule oniru avenue, Ikorodu.

I hobbled under the dim ambience of the vastly underdeveloped municipality. I am both physically and mentally jaded. The little money I borrowed for the interview wahala was already exhausted on unanticipated expenses from road travel.

I am really a mess, with my gaped secondhand work boot and a torn pair of trousers courtesy of the jostling during an ambition to secure a seat in danfo buses. Somethings would never change…

Everything was the way I knew them to be. The rustling of the leaves, the whistling of the wind, the singing birds calling to their lovers. I beheld all this all-too-familiar events as I coursed through a shorter route that would lead to the family house.

To be Continued...