Take me Back

The sort of news that makes the headlines these days are quite shocking and depressing and I am officially sick and tired of these present times. In one week, a girl killed her boyfriend because of infidelity, a man killed his wife over one thousand, five hundred naira, an undergraduate in my Alma mater Abia State University jumped off a three-storey building under the influence of hard drugs, a video of man who was being severely beaten by a group of men after being lured into the home of a married women he wanted to sleep with made the rounds, another video of a man stripped of his clothes and tied like a goat was also circulated. He had been sleeping with a six year old girl for three years, bloody pedophile! All these stories are quite sickening and make me long for the good old days. I no longer want to look at my phone and see updates of known or unknown gunmen killing or abducting people.

Lately I have been thinking of my childhood in Enugu and wish that someone will take me back to the days of Mazi Mperempe and Gwamgwamgwam; TV programmes that those who grew up in the old Enugu will remember with much nostalgia. I miss the days when children had a curfew and wouldn’t dare stay out beyond that time. Who can take me back to the days of Block Rosary Crusade when our young and innocent minds couldn’t wait to tie our head scarves with a technique that made us look like little nuns, singing “N’obodo Fatima na 1917” and reciting the Hail Mary in Igbo with all our hearts and looking out for those leading that evening to raise their hands indicating that the last bead was being said.

Take me back to the days of Congress; a gathering of all the Block Rosary centers in a particular area, where we were counted and the center with the highest number of attendees gladly received a round of applause as reward. In those days, we sang joyfully on the road on our way to congress without a care in the world; every child rich or poor, had a fair opportunity at being a child. 

Take me back to the days of Leventis and Kingsway stores. It was always a treat whenever we stopped over after school at the Leventis stores, we excitedly hopped out of our Peugeot 504, into the stores and picked our choices of chocolates; Cadbury’s Crunchy being an all time favorite. Kingsway stores had the most beautiful Father Christmas and going through the cave like entrance to visit Father Christmas in his grotto had our hearts throbbing in both fear and excitement. I kept a plastic soap dish I had gotten from one visit to Father Christmas for a very long time till it started to wear out.

I want to go back to when it did not take much to make a child happy, a ball or little doll was all it took. Who can take me back to the days of Tales by Moonlight when television was regulated by the Television Authority.  I long for the days of Tortoise Club and Twinkle club, also the days of Mirror in the Sun and Cock crow at Dawn. The first time I mourned a stranger was when MacAurthur Fom tragically passed just as he had captured the hearts of many Nigerians playing the role of handsome Nosa in the popular soap opera Behind the Clouds. He was not murdered by his lover and he was not caught on camera Babaijeshing an under-aged.

I long for the days when TV commercials were a big part of our lives and we knew the songs word for word and the taglines meant something to us. "Omo Omo super blue Omo washes brighter and it shows", "Hey Joy girl!", "Elephant Blue Detergent" are some of the advert songs that made my childhood memorable. Who will take me back to the days of Zebrudaya and Jegede Shokoya; the New Masquerade sitcom united a lot of families. It was almost suitable for all ages and so parents sat with their children and laughed away at the antics of Gringory, Clarus and Nati. It took a while to realize that Jegede was an Igbo man. Ovuleria and Apena pulled their weight as pioneer actresses in the entertainment industry, making their characters loved and relevant.

I desperately want to go back to the days when it did not matter who was Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa, and if it did, nobody noticed. Can I go back to the days when kids were asked to stay indoors because “ndi nto”, (supposedly kidnappers) were out looking for children to kidnap? It was actually a way of tricking children stay indoors. These days we look for ways to get the children to the outdoors. Gone are the days when lost kids were found by good Samaritans and shown on television for their parents or guardians to identify and take them home from the police stations. Obituaries were announced on televisions with solemn songs on the background allowing most families to empathize with grieving families that they do not even know. I long for the days of the cries of bush babies from uninhabited empty lands on the streets. 

The days of drinking straight from the tap are days that I miss so much, the days of skipping ropes, jumping swells and playing whot and ludo too. The days of Gintonic and Green sands shandy are far gone and the days of dipping soft bread in Fanta or Coke, forgotten for good.

What happened to our happy Nigeria? I remember visiting Kaduna as an eighteen year old with my flame and we visited a popular market decked in pairs of shorts. The local kids surrounded me and playfully tugged at my shorts; it was different from the clothing that they were used to. In all of the attention I received, never did I feel unsafe or afraid for my life. If it was today, the Islamic Hisbah could have arrested me on the orders of the diminutive wicked governor and possibly beheaded me for desecrating an Islamic land. During the over ten hours drive back to Enugu, we felt so safe on the roads, there were no bandits or kidnappers, when the car broke down and we had to wait for the back up vehicle, we stood at a corner and chatted away happily.

We arrived Enugu at almost 1am yet we were all comfortable and relaxed; the driver offered to drop off each passenger at our different locations just to compensate for the late arrival. I desperately and honestly long for those good old days.

Please shhh... do not tell Ferdinand and Beatrice of my illegal trip to Kaduna.