By Habeeb Olokooba
Home? What a tall question to ask a sober dreamer. Home was over a decade ago. When dad lived. Samad and Quadri, hale and hearty. In an untarred ghetto street, a shallow gutter along Sobi Road, that was my home.
So far I’ve got to learn life is a forlorn voyage on its own. Filled with cruelty, departure and disdain. Being happy was our dream, in a street filled with filth and deadly upbringing, yet it has a life of its own. Where we have got to meet the best of hobnobbers, frenemies and personalities that once meant the world to us. We were all dreamers. I wasn’t born there. Like every other kid, we grow. Into something we once dreaded, we grow. I learned that people go.
We were flocks of young dreamers with different dreams. I had my own dreams, but definitely not studying law. I have friends who can’t fulfill their destiny and are six feet deep down. Some never had sponsors for their dreams and I have some who willingly chose the hard way. After secondary school they become hustlers. Some join gangs and we’re killed. We were all cronies.
Life! Filled with pain and pleasure. ‘Ikú lòní, orò lóla…’ (Death today, wealth tomorrow) But when we die, who will merit the fortune tomorrow brings. Pa lòní pa lóla, bí ojú òbáfó… the octal will never remain the same. I was bred in a street where all the social amenities you’d enjoyed as kids were absent. Grew up in a hood where you can’t escape but exude the aura of a bad guy. Grew up in what I will call a jungle. Where dreams never exceed buying shirts and using a luxurious phone. Only few saw beyond the Roadside assembly.
It was gleaming and the problems seemed like it was going to finish. As I start to find solace in abject penury. Ilá alásèpò tends to be the best soup to us. Especially tóbá léja nínú. I was getting used and comfortable with our pitiable life. Then all of a sudden, farewell.
We were to leave the neighborhood. Into a better world, we were to go. Like a beast tamed between Maganma and Dadinkowa, I was perturbed, as a sense of confusion descended on me. I had to choose between spewing salt away forever or devouring the mess. I had to choose to quit. I ceased to live in the street where my life began. Except on my august visits, I was too stopped willingly.
On the leaving day, I can see my close crony, Dominic. All smiley, yet I can read the untold sad tales in his eyes. In the space of 10 years, we have come far. Both in tears and many appealing moments. Lost two friends already to the brutal hands of a sudden death. I lost my father and he lost his own mom too. My company meant the world to him, just like his meant to me. So on departure, his glistening eyes begging for answers as to how to carry on. I was going into a new street where I will be making new everything. I was to forget everything left behind.
Now after five years and still counting, time flies. Our bodies are now in their large sizes. I am to become a lawyer. Dominic’s fate is to be defined by his own hands. Few weeks after bidding the neighborhood farewell, my buddy traveled to the eastern coast, where he will be learning trade. He was to return after years of training. Then our man would have become a big man. Ignorance they say brings happiness, and verily those were the days I was truly elated. Believe me as I write this, my eyes pours. I’m sad those days won’t come again. Maybe I was being childish, or maybe departure is the beginning of growth. Where I come from was the only abode where I found true happiness.