THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD, A NOVEL CONT'D-NWOUGO FACES REALITY.

Eight

An Eye-opener

      The journey to the old colonial city of Lagos was an exciting one, though the roads were bad. Aunt Adanne’s Daewo Racer didn’t look old at all. The seats were made of a shiny black leather fabric, and were still new; the red glow of the car sparkled in the sunlight. Aunt Adanne seemed not to be interested in music, as we only listened to a British broadcast on the effects of human trafficking. I was just picking interest in the program, when aunt Adanne switched to another channel hissing, on which song with strong rhythmical beats was playing. The song was titled, ‘No Woman, No Cry’, and as aunt Adanne nodded her head, and raising her right hand simultaneously, like one pointing to the sky, she told me it was her favorite from the legend of Reggae music, Bob Marley. I stared at her in amazement before turning to look out through the window, after glancing shortly at a sticker near the dash board, labeled, ‘No Smoking’.

     As we went on I realized that the city was in ravages, and new buildings and construction projects had just begun. I wanted to know why the city was in such an undeveloped state. So I asked aunt Adanne.

          ‘Aunty, why is this city in a bad state, and their Igwe is doing nothing about it?’ I thought cities like villages, were ruled by kings.

          ‘Nwougo, Lagos is a city now, not a village. So it does not have an Igwe; and it is now under the British government’ she answered giggling.

          ‘Also, this city was a center of the slave trade until 1807, when the British stopped it. It was captured in 1851 and formally made a British colony in 1861; and because the old king of Lagos was only interested in slave trade, he did not care about developing the city’ she continued steering the car as we got to a road bend, with a sign post that read VICTORIA ISLAND. Aunt Adanne seemed to know a lot about history. She was a very smart woman, but her answer got me confused still for I did not know what a ‘colony’ was at the time.

           ‘Aunty, what is a colonia?’ I asked.

           ‘Nwougo it is not colonia, but colony. It means a group of places under one government or leader’ she answered correcting me. Although I did not understand how so many places were controlled by one government, I nodded. Only brutal leaders like the Oba of Benin could do that. May be aunt Adanne did not want me to know the British made Lagos a slave state still, I thought. But I later came to realize what aunt Adanne was saying.

     The streets of Lagos had some well-built houses, adjacently arranged in rows, while others were poorly built and looked like they needed only a slight wind to push them down. Lagos seemed to separate the poor from the rich in the way its houses were built, and the way the environments were; some very clean and some a pigsty. The streets also had names, most of which I could not pronounce with the little education I got from Nri. I was amazed that people planted brightly colored red, yellow, pink and green flowers, and kept gardens in front of their houses; and these were well-leveled. Aunt Adanne said those houses belonged to the white people who lived in the city.

TO BE CONTINUED...
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