“Nna!”
“Sir,” I responded to Papa’s summons with timely alacrity.
“You will be travelling to Kano in three days.” It was a command that came out exactly as one. Back then, fathers like mine generally ruled by decrees. “I hear the train gets almost filled from Kano so you need to go and board the train there to secure a seat for your sister.”
This was 1977 and Charity my elder sister was due to return to school in the East from Funtua in then North Central State. The journey plan was for her to join the Kano–Port Harcourt train in Zaria but the problem of congestion was the trigger to my eventual involvement. A few days earlier, Mama had hinted at the possibility of sending somebody to Kano, but Uncle Ajike who lived with us was – by age and experience – eminently better qualified for the assignment. So it came as a welcome surprise when Papa put me on notice: a surprise because at barely 15, I had only been to Kano once in the company of Mama. I was so giddy with joy that I never bothered to find out why I was preferred.
The next two days passed in a blur. I hardly slept the night before my momentous journey. One of Funtua’s foremost transporters at the time, Alhaji Usman Nabature operated a Funtua – Kano – Funtua daily luxury bus service. By 7am, I was already comfortably seated and headed for Kano: a journey that wound up as smooth as it was uneventful. By 10am, I had already purchased my ticket in readiness for roll-off. While waiting, I interacted with some of the other passengers of Igbo extraction and all of them without exception were headed to the East. It was strange I was heading only as far as Zaria.
For very obvious reasons, I chose a window seat. I carried no bag or any other luggage. Despite my most strategic position, I merely watched as other passengers engaged in the usual frenzy of buying what they needed for the journey. From the curious looks I got from them, I guess they may have thought many things of me. They may have assumed I didn’t have money or that I was a travel greenhorn and therefore clueless as to what I needed to be about. That I carried no luggage could have heightened suspicion that I was embarking on a nefarious mission. Because I minded my business while my journey lasted, it wouldn’t have been farfetched if someone assumed I was deaf and dumb.
It didn’t matter to me one way or the other what anybody thought, and I felt no compulsion to clarify matters. I knew why I was on that train and my unwavering intention was to complete my task.
As the train rolled into Zaria station, a massive, restless crowd of prospective passengers jostled on the platform. The most challenging part of my assignment was to locate my sister in the melee. Thankfully, her attractive complexion came in handy. Getting in was with her luggage (women always manage to end up with so much) was war. As soon as she was safely seated, getting out was an even more challenging affair. I wangled my way and managed to hop onto the platform just as the train began to pick up speed on its nearly 72 hour journey to the Garden City.
As I stood on that platform all roughed up and sweaty and watching the train snake away, I was satisfied I had done what I was billed to do. Whatever anybody may have thought or said did not matter: not then, not now and not ever. Sometimes, we just need to get about what needs to be done and allow the process of time to churn out the explanations.
Of a truth, Goodluck Jonathan is already undoubtedly Nigeria’s most maligned president. Like I suggested in an earlier piece, Jonaball seems to be the trending political sport. Those wishing to hone their excoriation skills mostly now prefer to take pot-shots at the president. He has been charged with all manner of iniquities ranging from cluelessness to clannishness, and I must confess that sometimes, he inadvertently provides his traducers with the ammunition they employ against him. Yet, in all, he has remained tame in his responses to the barrage of criticisms. Apart from the duo of Abati and Okupe who sometimes go overboard in a bid to compensate for Jonathan’s apparent aversion to the doctrine of a-tooth-for-a-tooth, he is well on his way to becoming Nigeria’s most tolerant president.
There are very many who are persuaded differently: asserting that the man doesn’t have what it takes to run Nigeria. I am certainly not a Jonathan acolyte and you’re not likely to see me in bed with the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria. But it has been occurring to me lately that, maybe, we’ve been misreading the man’s mission.
It seems to me that Jonathan’s core mandate is to occupy that position, not only to deny some desperados that privilege, but also to ensure that the one ordained to take Nigeria on the long, arduous journey to true and sustainable nationhood does not need to engage any battle of legitimacy. And like a scarecrow, his simple duty is to ensure that the pestilential birds that usually deplete and destroy the national harvest are kept at bay.
It just might turn out that Nigeria’s long delayed harvest time is closer than we imagine and who knows whether, like my sister Charity, our messiah will appear in the form of a woman!

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Pics of u entering nd travelling insyd or ur a liar of d highest order

incoherent and ambiguous

Nice story.