This is a new weekly column. Its served to you hot and with a very spicy dose of hard truths told with fairness, poetry, sarcarsm, humour and sweeties bitters. This first write-up is called BIG MOUTH. You will hate to miss reading it. This is vintage Winston Lebga flowing in ink. Editor
Enjoy.
Torrid time: A new column in The Voice newspaper.
TORRID TIME
Big Mouth
We have no place where we can congregate to talk, discuss, exchange info and impart the newest gossip without being afraid that a bullet with another person’s name might find its way into our tavern and pick one of those enjoying the national pass time, drinking.
My friend in a high place of the land has been bitterly vomiting his anger at some big shots in Abakwa. ‘Dem seh mek we no fear, but dia pikin dem di go skool for alaside, na who yi pikin go tek bullet?’
When I analyze the stench, it doesn’t make any sense at all. So, if this so-called struggle were to last twenty-five years, an entire generation of children would end up being nincompoops? Many of the vibrant towns of the North West are not places to go without tight security.
The difference between right and wrong seems to be blurred. It’s a jungle out here. It’s the wild, wild North West. Living in these parts is like standing near a volcano waiting for it to erupt, you never know what will happen.
Almost everyday somebody is killed, people are running away from the region, many who have stayed back are starving, beggarly people. God knows what is going to happen now.
I went to one of the places referred to here as eating houses where a slovenly waitress with a soiled apron came up to me, looking tired and with a grunt asked me to order. I realized she needed the food more than I did.
In the living room of the eating house which had a vague air of one time gentility, with a furniture that looked worn, shabby and smelled musty the waitress told me the sad tale of her troubles.
She is an internally displaced person whose two elder brothers have joined their father (who passed on twenty years ago) in the land of the ancestors.
Her brothers were at the receiving end of gunshots from men in fatigues. One of her cousins has also been killed by people popularly referred to as unidentified gun men.
The slovenly waitress says her cousin was called a black leg for helping a man in fatigues, sleeping with another one and selling drinks considered as contraband in her bar.
“I don hear bad for de two sides dem-way no dey! At this point, my appetite travelled so I ordered for a drink and was served a potent liquid nicknamed here as “armoured car”.
Permit me to digress for a moment. I hear a fervent supporter of the Ambalander’s cause had indulged in a boozing spree drinking this mark of the eagle beer from Naija.
His lionhearted Dutch courage led him to commandeer an armoured car. It was during the days when the region was placed under curfew.
This man in his early fifties left his drinking buddies in the tavern and lurched drunkenly into the middle
of a deserted street where an armoured vehicle was on patrol.
He waved down the vehicle and instructed the driver to take him home. His order was executed.
The next day the armoured car came by to find out whether the eagle drinker had a great night. “Which me, me I stop armoured car, wuna di mad?”
The man yelled when he was informed that the soldiers came to enquire after his state since he was totally doused in booze the previous night. He dashed into the bushes bellowing, ‘ wuna mami pima!’
So, Mrs Slovenly takes your order, serves your food, clears the tables, waits the tables, packs the drinks in the shelves and fridge, and cleans around for a meagre salary.
Proprietors cannot afford the services of many employees. Times are hard. She looks depressed. She is not alone. We are all depressed here.
Who would not be, with everyday stories of people being summarily executed? We used to hear of retribution from the gods for sitting on certain stools considered sacred in our traditional palaces or shaking hands with the fon.
Now, palaces have been desecrated, fons have escaped as internally displaced persons and some have got severe beatings from unidentified gunmen to the point that they are now shaking hands and warmly embracing mere mortals.
People who are used to patronizing funerals and burial ceremonies have understood that their absence now would not raise the dead.
Villages that held aloft the principle that their sons and daughters cannot be buried out of the village.
Even the cultures and traditions are adapting to the changing times. We might soon be shaking hands with fons and not need to be hovering decorously around traditional royalty.
We might even enter the gumba house and not be disciplined for breaching the palace’s rules of decorum. We are going through a very torrid time and we know that whatever the case, things would never be the same again.