Photo credit: Nigeria Nostalgia
Mine was a very lively childhood. I would say I had a pretentious innocence.
That’s because I actually knew much more than the adults knew that I did. And, I’m suspecting that at least half of the youngsters of those days had a semblance of that too.
You know, school was an experience. A very great experience. We were introduced into the Alawiye series.
After the preliminary, a – aja, b – bata, u – uku uku. We graduated into the D.O. Fagunwa world of Igbo Irunmale series. The stories were so real to our innocent minds that it took me some time to know that the Ojola Ibinu is actually fictional.
My early life was that of natural music. Birds still perched on trees in our cities because there was foliage. These days the foliage has been replaced by fences.
The secured fences in themselves show our level of insecurity. Meanwhile, when the ‘boys’ come to liberate what’s theirs, we find to our chagrin that we are defenceless.
They practically walk through space to claim those things we’ve been keeping for them.
Our parents listened to and danced gracefully to Baba L’Egba and Baba n Gani Agba. Our uncles were highlifing to the music of Bobby Benson, victor Olaiya and Rex Jim Lawson.
I can remember that only few houses had fences. What was popular in those days were waist line fences that showed the beauty of each house.
No window had any burglar proof device. We hardly knew of night watch men.
That was however to change with the discovery of oil. To worsen matters, workers were paid the Udoji awards. Many of them even received arrears.
For a nation coming out of a thirty month civil war in which the losers were paid £20 sterling, no matter what they had in the banks before the war started, it actually left much to be desired. This is more so, when the ruler at that time had declared that there was no victor, no vanquished.
The nation lost its innocence!
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