Obiagu Road in Enugu is known for its notoriety, especially the Council area close to Amawusa; the area where you have the defunct infamous Salon Hotel, with its characteristic display of skimpily dressed gawky whores. I remember I have once seen a whore fight and embarrass a gentle man there for not paying the complete fee after doing “business” with her. I live at college road, close to Obiagu and I hate that the entire area is called Obiagu. I hate it when people call my house Obiagu. I don’t like walking down to the rowdy Obiagu junction where you have Agberos smoking along the street, and bus conductors announcing various destinations. If you don’t listen carefully, you might not understand what the bus conductors say:
“akpaakpaakpa” for Abakpa
and “opa, opa, opa” for old park.
They always rob people around that area, though I’ve never been robbed there. With time I have got to know some of the guys that sell igbo at the hidden corners of Obiagu Primary School by name. Anya-ura, Onye-owa and Obere are always there whenever I pass to buy air time in the night. I always hail them and shake hands with them. I buy them drinks at times and they call me “chairman”. That is how not to get robbed. They call themselves Umu-ogbe. I have become Nwa-ogbe too, after identifying with them, so they can’t do me any harm – dogs don’t eat dogs.
Last Saturday, I was at home. I decided to sit out at the balcony of my house and watch activities around the street. It was the balcony where my younger brother called CNN. I bet you, watching Obiagu activities from the balcony can be more interesting than watching any Nollywood - too many young girls rumpling up and down the street in their younger sisters wears and some street boy at the dark corners making cat calls at them; boys with their trousers drawn down to the buttocks and drunk old men groping home. Another interesting sight is the mad woman that plays and talks to herself all day at the council roundabout. She plays and dances on her own in the day time and in the night some faceless men come and sleep with her. I only wonder why some men would make love to that pungently stinking mad woman when there a too many beautiful girls in the street burning with passion. I also wonder why it must be only that particular dirty mad woman since there are other mad women around even the ones that walk naked. Another mad man they call old Soldier loiters up the street too. He wears tight fitted leggings and walks like a woman with glassless frames on his face. Obiagu is full of mad people with different entertaining behaviours I must confess, including sane people gradually drifting into insanity evident by the way they dress and act. It must not be unconnected with the igbo they sell around there. I must confess I like the smell of the Indian hemp that hangs at the council area every time I pass, though I’ve never tested it. It is in Obiagu that you can see girls that can fight boys, break bottles and stab themselves; girls that dress and walk like boys with their jeans trouser sagged to the buttocks. The most annoying sights there are their dirty cashew nut fluid tattoos that look like kindergarten students drawing practice on their biceps, shoulders and on some girls’ exposed bum cheeks.
What happened last Saturday bamboozled me. I was looking out from the balcony as usual when I saw a man hawking rat-killers, insecticides, pesticides and other things I couldn’t understand. He carried his goods in a basket on his head and hung a string of dried dead rats over his neck. I had always looked for a way to eliminate the rats that ran around freely in my house as if they contributed for the house rent. Obiagu rats can be very stubborn than you can imagine. What other kind of rat can confidently climb up three storey building and rummage freely in the rooms? The annoying thing is that they never found anything to eat in my house. What has a miserable bachelor to offer a rat? The agility with which the rats scurry up the staircase can be so flabbergasting.
I called the rat-killer man. He showed me various types, ranging from kill and dry to biscuit flavoured glue traps. I was taking up the kill and dry bottle when a boy that was naked from waist up ran down to where we were and snatched away the rat-killer bottle from my hand and zoomed off. The peddler dashed after him. I didn’t see his face clearly. He looked like one of the guys that sell igbo behind Obiagu primary school.
“onye-ohi! onye-ohi! onye-ohi!” the peddler screamed as he chased after the boy. People laughed and clapped for them. I laughed too because I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t understand why somebody should risk his life by stealing a bottle of rat-killer that’s worth less than N50.
That is another thing I don’t like about Enugu. They do nothing to these cheap robbers. If it were in Aba, somebody would have hacked the boy down with a club.
I was confused. If I chased after the boy, some other persons might come from somewhere else and take away the remaining basket of rat killers. I took the basket inside our compound and ran after them.
The street was at a pause.
Everybody watched the racers.
The boy ran through the street where they sell igbo and dashed through the broken walls of Obiagu primary school into the school compound. I ran passed the old man and before I could get close to the guy, he had uncorked the bottle and emptied the entire content into his mouth and belched. Then he stopped and turned looking at me with eyes flashing like a watch night’s torch.
I was stunned.
I didn’t know what to do.
Then the rat-killer peddler strolled in through the broken wall breathing like a lizard that had fallen off an iroko. Some onlookers followed him.
“wey my tusasia?” he barked with eyes bloody red. The boy didn’t say a word but coughed and smiled wryly and kicked the empty bottle on the ground. The man dashed forward and charged at the boy before he saw the bottle and stopped dead.
“o nugo nu tusasia o!” the man screamed and fell backwards. I held him and the boy ran off again and the multitude of onlookers ran after him. I didn’t see the need to stop a man that had decided to end his life, especially with the geometric growth of the population of the country without corresponding growth in national wealth and food supply. I just hissed and helped the rat killer man up.
“oga go carry your things run o!. This guy go die now and you know the kain police wey we get for this country. They go come carry you say na you kill am.” I whispered.
“hmm?” the man’s eyes flipped wide open and he ran out through the broken wall and I followed him. I gave him his basket and went into my house and slept off.
By the next day, I heard that the guy was rushed to the hospital but he died.
Kedu kwanu nke gbasara m?
