TUNDE ODESOLA FROM PUNCH
At the Admin Block, where I had to pay some fees and do some paperwork, something instructive happened. I came before a registration officer, who was in high spirits. He greeted me in Igbo but I answered in English. He looked at me from head to toe, and asked in Igbo what my name was. “I don’t understand Igbo.” “You don’t understand Igbo!?” he thundered. “You jus dey enter school, yanga don already start!?
“What nonsense! You’re ashamed to speak your mother tongue; shame on you!” Though a rascally laugh welled up in my stomach, I kept a straight face. When he simmered, he said, “Oyinbo, what’s your name?” “Babatunde Odesola.” His forehead creased in a frown. He asked, “Isi gini? What did you say?” I repeated, “Babatunde Odesola.” “You’re Yoruba?” I said yes. He jumped up from his seat in excitement and asked me, “Why did you queue up?” “You must never queue up in this school again. Anytime there’s a queue, you just go to the front and introduce yourself as Yoruba, they will attend to you first. Igbo are highly accommodative of strangers.”
In the twinkling of an eye, he got my papers signed, and kept looking at me as if I was newly orphaned, telling his colleagues, “See, see nwa Yoruba from Lagos! He has come here to school!” His colleagues, who were in separate cubicles, looked up, but weren’t convinced because, according to them, I looked Igbo.
So, they bombarded me with questions and assertions, “Are you from Lagos?” Ngwa nu, speak Yoruba make we hear. Why did you not choose UNILAG or Ife? Me, I have brothers in FESTAC, Mile 2 and Amuwo. Do you dance to Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade songs?
Ha, Yoruba sabi enjoy party o!…”
“E don do, Ozugo!,” my erstwhile taunter came to my rescue, “Una wan kill di boy with questions? We all laughed. During this interaction, I got to know I was the first Yoruba student to be admitted in the school. My new old friends urged me not to hesitate to come around if I run into any problem. They also charged me to take the gospel of Igbo love back with me to my kith and kin in Lagos. I felt on top of the world. I felt beloved. I felt proud of ‘one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.’
For a four-year course, I spent five years; no thanks to the long strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities during the roguish Ibrahim Babangida era.
For the one-year, mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme, I spent one and a half years because Umuopu community, which was my place of primary assignment, and the neighbouring Aji community, both in the Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu Ezike, pleaded with me to stay back to teach their students.
Being the first ‘corper’ to accept posting to Umuopu, I had the privilege, along with my colleague, Johnson Umor (deceased), of attending elders’ meeting in the sprawling compound of the community’s oldest man, Onyishi.
My attraction to the meeting wasn’t the ceaseless land and palm tree disputes, it was the frothing palm wine in numerous gourds brought by each house in the community to the meeting. Verily, verily I say unto you, the years I spent in Igboland were the most exciting years of my youth. The Igbo man, outside his domain, is businesslike; within his homeland, he’s a goodwill ambassador.
For about seven years, I hardly spent a Christmas or New Year holiday in Lagos. My fellow Igbo students would have booked me all through the festive periods as I would move from one town to another like a well sought-after dibia. If you don’t know, the Igbo celebrate Christmas as if Joseph and Mary are next-door neighbours, they celebrate New Year as if it’s the last.
