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Obalende


Bridges fly over this town like birds. You see workers – white collar, blue, brown, purple – walking like the earth would collapse under their feet whatever time it was of the day. Obalende wakes up to the honks from private and public vehicles with passengers who are in a haste to meet up with work schedules. The yellow public buses make passers-by sneeze from black fumes, cursing the air at the slamming of their brakes. Although they are scrappy in nature, they serve us who can only afford a single meal per day. Don't throw a stone here; it just might meet one of your own. 

Obalende welcomes you with the smell of food varieties from different local shops to the jamming of fuji music, to the preachers of eternal life, to the blaring of advertisements through loudspeakers well positioned on the ground. Those vendors, they sell drugs for multi-purpose functions. You will hear them marketing: 


“Have you tried Egba Ijebu? This drug can cure your stomach aches, your headaches, your tuberculosis, your cancer, your gonorrhoea, your syphilis, your this, and your that. All you need to do is buy it for just 200 box and your health sins shall be made whole!” 


Obalende, call it the region of hustlers, of survivors. You know, there are hawkers, they survive. There are beggars, they survive. There are artists, they survive. There are area boys, yes, they survive too! They all survive amidst the morning and evening traffic, the littered and flooded roads, the deafening noise and expired sold goods. I survive too. I survive every morning when I need to brush my teeth, take a bath, forget to pray, rush out of the house to board the first bus that would take me to Obalende. I survive when I need to jump out of a moving bus once it is close to the bus stop or else, the driver takes you miles away all in the name of hiding from the police, to avoid giving bribes or egunge as they call it. 


 I remember the first time the ancestors of this town welcomed me. There was a crowd gathered under a billboard that read “RENEWED HOPE” in the middle of Obalende Square which had the face of the presidential candidate for the APC party half-washed out by the rain that poured down in torrents the previous night. He looked unreal in that ginormous paperback picture.  

“Move! Move! Move your freaking selves out of the way, you urchins!” 

“What is all this on a Monday morning? What is going on?” 

“I don’t blame all of you. I blame my mother for making me a citizen of this country. Hell is even better than this place.” 

“I think there might be a juicy story in that crowd. No harm in going to look eh!” 

“Can someone call the police to come sort whatever it is out?” 

“Oh God deliver me from every negative traffic today, amen.” 


They were in their cars making one commentary or the other. Those people. You know what I did? I alighted from the overloaded bus that was meant to take me to the Island for an interview. Then I walked directly towards the crowd because it could be Ola, my born -to-steal brother who they had finally caught. But the crowd was too silent to have caught a thief. At first, I stepped on toes, slippers, shoes, boots, heels, spitting out “oh sorry, I’m so sorry” just to get to the heart of this movie; getting firsthand information is the best! Then I bumped into squeezing shoulders, recording phones, shirts, and blouses. And then I suddenly had a free way that brought me right in front of the action like a push on a stage with the lights on you. The action was in the form of a woman, a mother, a wife, a nurse. She had her apparel on with the name tag Mary Thomas. Her blouse revealed the cut from a caesarean delivery. Mary lay down flat on her back like a defeated wrestler, unmoving, tired, with legs apart and head to the left.  

“Who’s a doctor here?” I screamed! The crowd reversed. 

“Nobody? Anyone called 199? I asked. 

“Oga, 199 no dey connect. If we call till tomorrow nobody go pick up. This woman don die. Nothing we can do again. Just pray for her soul to rest in peace that is all” A man from the crowd remarked. 


They dispersed slowly, just another day that Obalende was not any good. Nobody could say the cause of death. Some claimed she suddenly slumped, others said she convulsed and then fell; she missed a foot and fell. She received a phone call and fell; she looked to the skies and fell. In the end she fell. In seconds she would be on the news, social media, with opinions flying like imperfect kites. In shock, I took one last look at Mary and noticed her eyes were directed at the billboard. But where is her hope now? I dispersed as well for my interview. I would have been a better medical doctor than an IT engineer I thought. Mary’s body will be picked up in a few hours’ time and Obalende will keep on bubbling unlike Mary’s family. So, my friend, I will advise you to look for an apartment somewhere else unless you have the heart for Obalende. And just to mention, I did woefully at that interview. Better luck next time. 


Don’t Forget to Be Honest!


 

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