MEMOIRS OF A NIGERIAN LIVING ABROAD (EPISODE 7)

Before I delve into this episode, I would love to delve Pa and Ma Nizzle for sending me to the best schools in Nigeria. Why? Because if I had not achieved the level of literacy I now possess, I would be mired in the technological jargons here in the UK. Even with my supposed level of literacy, you have no idea how many buses and trains I have missed because of the level of information you have to absorb. Information such as arrival times, departure, maps would keep your brain running at a million miles per second. If you want to come to the UK and your literacy level looks as bad Ronaldinho’s face, I suggest you brush up.

Back to my sojourn, I got to the Bournemouth station and after struggling with the ticket machine and enduring the impatient stares of the polite citizens who if they were Nigerians would have wonderfully blessed me with curses and insults, I finally found out that my fare would cost me £46.50. My legs started shaking and the syndrome I affectionately call the ‘Calculator Syndrome’ took over. The Calculator syndrome is that in which you unconsciously and subconsciously convert pounds into naira either with your head if you are at maths and if you are bad at it as I am, with you calculator. The syndrome has affected me so much and still does. Any price of any good or service quoted to me and immediately I am multiplying by N250. Major symptoms of this syndrome is increased heart beat, frequency of breaking into a cold sweat, leg shaking and twitchy movements, stammering and a severe bout of depression after paying. In short, my brain is a foreign currency exchange industry.

After paying at last, I walked dejectedly into the train hoping the Amala promised me would be worth the ticket fare. Because the train was so comfortable, it wasn’t long before I drifted into a nap and then I started dreaming weird things ranging from the absolutely ridiculous to the sublime. First, I dreamt I was on an okada heading towards Oshodi, after I alighted, I started chasing mosquitoes telling them I love them and they duly reciprocated singing hymns in my ears. I dreamt I was at an Ibadan Amala joint watching a obese woman prepare it with her sweat dripping into the Amala (we all know sweat actually makes the Amala sweeter), I saw the unlucky but sumptuous goats to be slaughtered into Egufe and licked my lips in anticipation.

My dream suddenly turned for the better with Miss Nizzle beside me, cuddling me, whispering love nonentities into my ears ...My dream was suddenly halted by sudden movement by my side. I woke up to see a heavily bearded Arab man with a turban by my side, he was reading something in Arabic and seemed to be chanting, beside him was a bag. I have never sweated since I arrived Uk before because of the weather but with this instance the sweat started to drip profusely. I started regretting and lamenting what the promise of Amala had gotten me into. To be blown to bits! To make things worse, the guy smiled at me and I started wondering what I would tell God at the pearly gates. Imagine telling him my time was cut short because of the black flour called Amala. For the duration of the trip, I prayed in languages from English, Yoruba and even French I couldn’t speak. When the train stopped at London Waterloo, I ran faster than Usain Bolt towards the exit.

London posed another challenge. First I would love to thank the Murray Bruce’s before I reveal the challenge. The challenge was that of escalators. There are too many escalators in London. If not because I had done Industrial Training in boarding escalators at the Silverbird Galleria and Ozone Cinemas, I would have been found severely wanting. Even with all my ‘training’, maximum concentration is required else I embarrass myself and the entire Nizzle household. This made me remember when I saved a girl from escalator death at Silverbird Galleria. The poor girl had never boarded one in her life but was still trying to feel sophisticated. Midway, she tumbled backwards and it took quick thinking on my part to drag her back save her from death or from the embarrassment that could equally lead to death. Please if you can’t board escalators, don’t try to be sophisticated, the best policy is to confess or take the stairs.

On the streets of London, the ladies especially the black ones were ogling me with their eyes like eye candy. Later on, I learnt the girls here have radar detectors to sense new fish in the pond which was supposed to be in this context. I could see them sharpening their knives, preparing to cast their nets. Pity! I was already taken. Not that I blame them though, a fine young man like me would always cause that reaction. If I was them, I might have done the same to me too.

Still on ladies, I have noticed that the backsides of white girls have grown considerably bigger. Previously, from what I used to see in movies, I thought it was a lot flatter but in actual view, from what I have seen, they are catching up seriously with the girls I used to eye through subterranean means via my rear view and side mirrors. I don’t know the cause but I would safely attribute it to climate change or depletion of the ozone layer. Or is it that Dr 90210 is working overtime? Beats me. Miss Nizzle, please disregard the above paragraph, let’s imagine I didn’t write that.

Around 4pm, it was already dark as is the case over here during winter. It is a very disconcerting feeling especially since that it not the case in Nigeria till 7:30pm. Imagine your whole environment dark around 4pm! It makes me lazy quickly because once I look outside and see that it is dark, I instantly assume the day is over and close my brain up for the day. Furthermore, I don’t understand the fact that Nigerian is an hour ahead. Does it mean I live in the past here? Does it mean Nigerians are one hour in the future? If so, it would be nice receiving information about what would happen in the next hour. Please if you’ve got exclusives, you could help me live a better life.

Finally after getting lost as I always seem to do over here, I got to my destination. My dreams had finally come true. I was at last going to reunite with Amala and before I forget, long lost relatives. My stomach did a joyful somersault and started singing songs of Solomon. This was going to be a fun-filled time and I intended to enjoy every morsel, the image of the Arab man on the train made me more determined...

MEMOIRS OF A NIGERIAN LIVING ABROAD (EPISODE 6)

In the beginning, the world was divided into the freezer and the oven. Countries in the freezer were mostly developed ones like the United States, the United Kingdom and other European countries while the oven comprised mainly of African countries and of course our beloved country Nigeria. In the freezer, most of the people are mostly passive, easy going almost to the point of being labelled ‘Mumu’ while in the oven, the inhabitants are overly aggressive, confrontational and the colour of their eyeballs are always red. In short, citizens of the oven are as paranoid as a Nigerian radio soccer commentator during a match. In the freezer, there is a culture of repairing and rehabilitation while the hobbies of the ‘ovenians’ are to destroy and lack maintenance culture. In the freezer, there is a high sense of transparency but in the oven, we have all been baked in corruption and the fine art of deception. In the UK, a minister can be held to just stealing a pound but in Nigeria, it would be a sin that could lead to being ostracized by your family members if you are in a position of authority and don’t embezzle. An attestation is the fact of how internet fraud a.k.a Yahoo-Yahoo is now our major export after petroleum and the major victims all come from the freezer hemisphere

I labelled the UK as part of the freezer because of the cold environment. It is so cold here that if you hold a hot bottle of Guinness and walk down the street, it would be cold before you get to the end of the road. I now understand the reason why Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger shivers during matches. At first I thought it was as a result of the match tension but now I know better.

The weather here is also conditioned in such as way that even the most facially offensive person would actually start looking good after some months, to the extent that he would start comparing himself to a Denzel Washington. Well, with someone like me who was already pleasing to the eye before leaving Nigeria, the weather here has only reinforced my aesthetic value. Needless to say, I am a head-turner; Miss Nizzle is one lucky gal. I labelled the inhabitants of the UK as passive because everyone waits their turn over here. Everyone is a perfect gentleman. In Nigeria, if you decide to be a gentleman, you would be labelled as slow and what I popularly call a ‘John’.

The aggressive and greedy nature of humans even seems to have transcended into the behavioural structure of our animals and insects. You cannot afford to leave your food on the table without the mischievous rodent a.k.a rats coming to feast on your delicacy. I remember an epic battle I had in Nigeria; it was a titanic struggle between man, insect and rodent. On this particular day, I had been famished, as in I had not eaten all day. I finally managed to score myself some rice and chicken and settled down to do it justice. Before I knew it, a battalion of ravenous ants and a gang of cockroaches marched with vengeance towards my meal with determination in their eyes.  I was still swiping at them when some adolescent rats joined in the fray, aiming for my chicken. To tell you the truth I was scared and confused that day. I was very confused as to what to battle first as they all attacked my meal simultaneously; the situation was as confusing as someone telling to make a decision about which one you want between Jay-Z’s wealth and wife. The scary part was because of the new-found courage of the animals, the depth of desperation. That incident made up my mind to leave Nigeria before these animals plotted against my life.

Due to the fact that I was born and raised in the oven hemisphere, a lot of ‘ovenian’ deceptive characteristics have followed me here to the UK. Prominent among that characteristic is that of flashing. Flashing, a notorious phone habit (one used in cutting call tariffs) in Nigeria is now even a form of communication. You could use flashing to tell someone you are waiting outside, I have used it often to tell Miss Nizzle I love her, you could use it to find your misplaced phone, say good night e.t.c but over here it is non-existent. However, it has served me and still serving me well in the UK to cost enormous calling costs. Anytime I want to talk to my European classmates, I rarely use my credit. Once I flash, they would call back within seconds and I would give them the excuse of trying to call them...blah...blah...blah. Till date I have not been found out. Trying to push my luck, I put the same practice into use by flashing a Nigerian based over here. As I write this piece, he is yet to call back.

The freezer and oven have other differences. In the freezer we have butterflies while in the oven we are blessed with beautiful, sexy mosquitoes. In the freezer, romance rules eternal. All you have to do here is gaze into a girl’s eyes, hold her hands and tell her you love her. It doesn’t matter how much you have, your social class, all that matters is your declaration of love which you obviously uttered to fast track your green card application. Unfortunately, in the oven, if you tell a girl you love her, you had better be prepared to show her your account balance, the keys to your car and flat at Ajah to stand a good chance with her. Ah! Before I forget, load her phone with credit regularly too.

As I entered the train heading to London Waterloo, the freezer and oven theory played in my mind. I was past worrying though, all I had on my mind was the Amala that had been promised me in the English capital...

MEMOIRS OF A NIGERIAN LIVING ABROAD (EPISODE 5)

While I was in Nigeria, I felt I was precocious, that is being a young genius. Back home, I was like one of the youngest in class and of course one of the ‘smartest’. Nothing seemed beyond my reach and in fact it was sometimes embarrassing revealing my age in order not to be labelled ‘too young’. On getting to the UK, I expected this to be the case, I expected to be a young prodigy, expected to be hailed as a genius at the very least- I was wrong, very wrong.

Over here, I am what we Nigerians would term ‘Agbaya’. In class, I am surrounded with very intelligent 20 or so year olds who know more than what some lecturers back in Nigeria can only dream about. I seriously began to reduce the numbers of my Intelligence Quotient when I saw what I was faced with. All at once, I came to the sad realization that schooling in Nigeria was a play-ground and a skirt-chasing arena. Imagine using words like post-modernism, existentialism, solipsism, cultural relativism, hegemony regularly and then you start to get an idea of what I am talking about. Imagine arguing with and reading works of people like Roland Barthes, Fredrick Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Lichtenberg and then you would begin to understand why my hair is growing faster and my brain expanding like an inflated balloon. This seriously was a rude shock from using words like shebi, oya, abi and arguing about Guinness, Arsenal and Man-U in class to suddenly delving into an intellectual world like this made me have a rethink. I immediately made plans of knocking some years off my age so that they wouldn’t start looking at me like Olodo Agabaya.

However, one thing that I was a trendsetter in was in the social scene. I remember when we were going for a class outing one Thursday night. While we were going, one of my classmates driving was bitterly complaining of what he termed as traffic which in this case was less than five minutes. I gave him an unbelieving look, laughing in my mind on how lucky they were over here. I swear, if I put this fella on 3^rd mainland bridge traffic on a Friday Night, he would contemplate suicide by jumping into the ocean. I kind of felt nostalgic, missing the Lagos traffic. Most of my creative thinking was done inside Lagos traffic. I used to plan like a year advance of my life in traffic! I could watch half a season of Prison Break inside traffic!

As we continued, this same guy started complaining that the road around where we were going was bad. I braced myself hoping to see bad roads but to my surprise, the road he called bad, was smoother than a bald billionaire’s head. Imagine, if I dropped this guy on an average road in Lagos? Imagine if he had to drive without street-lights? During my stay here, I am yet to see a pot-hole. In Nigeria, the pot-holes were so much that I had an inbuilt GPDD (General Pothole Detecting Device) programmed in my brain. Needless to say, I pride myself on the fact on knowing where all the potholes in Lagos are located. Infact, the way the guy was driving was annoying and he claimed to have been driving for 4 years! Worse part was that all of them were driving like zombies. I missed my Lagos drivers; the dare-devil stunts we pull that would make Michael Schumacher blush in appreciation. I longed for the curses thrown on the roads, the tooting of horns and the million-per-second calculation our brain does in avoiding pot-holes, other drivers, pedestrians and of course the bloody  and often lawless Okada riders.

Finally we arrived at the club and I had to use my passport to get in. They didn’t want under-age people to get in but when they saw my face, saw my agbaya face, they let me in without objection. Once I got in, I noticed differences between clubbing in Nigeria and the UK. The first glaring one was the percentage of females that were drinking. In Nigeria, we guys for whatever reasons practically beg girls to take some alcohol which in most cases for whatever reason, they refuse citing that the only alcoholic drink they would contemplate drinking was the wallet sapping, milky, Baileys. Here, girls drink everything from beer to vodka and they do it until they literally drop. I noticed also the level of promiscuity here in clubs can be compared to that of Sodom & Gomorrah. It takes less than five minutes between a guy meeting a girl and getting accustomed to the machinations of her lips and tongue. I shuddered. I also noticed the music was not what I was accustomed to, they played a lot of garage music and techno and they all danced and bobbed their heads like wall geckos drunk on Shepe. I have never been a fan of Terry G but right then, I would have traded my Arsenal jersey to hear his music. After watching them a bit and after some pints descended into my nervous system, I decided to take law into my hands, by showing them how to rock the dance floor. Those who knew me in Nigeria heavily used to criticise my dancing style which bordered on the erotic but when I started moving those hips ‘African style’, giving them the Alanta and Yahoozee, all eyes fixed on me. I was like Michael Jackson when he was black without his gloves.

Like a magnet, they all started gathering around me and some even started emulating me. With my success on the dance floor, I silently imagined opening a dancing school based on my dance moves and making thousands of pounds off it. Imagine a school named- NIZZLE HOUSE OF DANCING. Ah! That would be nice. However, nothing beats clubbing in Lagos. I noticed that the guy who drove me didn’t drink much and he told me because he didn’t want to lose his license for drinking under the influence (DUI) because of the cops. I laughed. Laughed because, mid-night on Awolowo road on a Friday night was where you could see the highest congregation of drunk drivers in the world! Laughed because even in your intoxicated state, the Nigerian police wouldn’t penalize you, rather there are situations when we even give them alcohol too. Laughed because Nigeria is the only place I see hawkers selling can- beer in traffic to people that drive.

Laughing and bemused with my experiences that night, I left the club. It was odd because I was in a sea of white instead of usually being in the midst of my black brothers. All around me, I saw a lot of teenage drunks puking all around the corners; I saw some entering cabs ready for late morning trysts. I was alone (obviously, Miss Nizzle wouldn’t have it otherwise) and longed for more black, I decided to go to London not to see the Queen but long-seen relatives...