The first term of my second year at Federal Government College Malali, Kaduna was spent stretched out on a bed at Dala Orthopaedic Hospital Kano after undergoing corrective surgery on my right knee. Sometime in 1972, I had flouted my father’s strict orders and went riding on his priceless bicycle. The predictable fallout was an awkward fall that got my right knee grotesquely dislocated. Two previous surgical interventions and a stint with a traditional bone setter had all come to nought. Dala seemed to be the last chance there was to exorcise my established capacity to mess up every good thing. For my dear, longsuffering mother, allowing her first son to be away from school for a whole term was a painful but reasonable price to pay to correct the worsening effect of that freak accident. I think I spent the Christmas of 1976 in Dala.
While I was away, an event I had been anticipating in my final weeks in Class 1 happened: the arrival of the new students. Among them was a pretty lass named Portia Ramaphosa. As soon as I limped back to school in January 1977 and set my famished eyes on her, I knew immediately that I had missed a unique opportunity to place myself in a vantage position to make the acquaintance of one who could very well become Miss Malali if matters ever came to that. And how would I know that? I had watched the miracle of my two elder sisters transform from awkward girls to gracefully beautiful ladies. I knew the potentials and saw them clearly in Portia. Unfortunately, there was already a motley crowd of swooning admirers milling around her, and joining them was totally out of the question. I am agoraphobic.
I contemplated other tactics like employing my above-average academic rating as leverage, and maybe that would have worked wonders if Portia herself wasn’t also above-average. Not being so physically endowed, I could certainly not compete at that level and my newly acquired orthopaedic limp only exacerbated my already desperate situation. For three and half years, I watched with diminishing hope from the side-lines as my expectation slowly went up in smoke.
There was an even more compelling reason why I was dying to nudge closer to Portia: the country of her nativity, South Africa. At the time, South Africa was still in the firm grips of apartheid, the deadly war of liberation being waged by the African National Congress was in full-swing with Nigeria in the very thick of it. Though she wasn’t a beneficiary of the federal government’s anti-apartheid students’ sponsorship initiative, Portia was only one of many South African students in Nigerian institutions. In the matter of being a brother’s keeper, Nigeria’s records are beyond compare. Without motivation of reward or returns, Nigeria continues to bear the burdens of many nations with equanimity.
Yet there was something about everything South African that held me in mesmerizing attention. It was in their men who were brave and their women who were beautiful. It was in the peculiar pulsating rhythm of their songs that announced hope with a hint of the melancholic. It was equally in their exotic names and the faith of a man – Mandela – who was prepared to pay any price for his people’s liberation. That Nigeria fought no battle of liberation probably partly accounts for why we have largely misused the privilege of independence. The anti-apartheid struggle provided me the opportunity to vicariously participate in an experience Nigeria couldn’t afford me. In close proximity to any South African, I felt like I was an anti-apartheid activist, that I was part of a worthy initiative infinitely bigger than me.
I never got close enough for Portia so she could take even the briefest notice of me, and in my Black Book of Memorable Losses, I have a bold entry of that monumental loss. I left Kaduna in 1980 but never forgot Portia. Some years ago, I came across the picture of the famous Hottentot Venus and for obvious reasons, I remembered Portia and thought of her as the Hurting Thought Venus!
Forward to 2014 and I’m taking a leisurely stroll around Cyberia; specifically Facebook when I suddenly saw a comment by a Portia Ramaphosa to a post by one of my many friends. Could this be Miss Malali? There was no picture on her wall so I sent her a ‘friends’ request. Less than 48 hours later, she accepts my request! She couldn’t recall who exactly I was; whether I was her classmate or not. She was swayed by a piece I had posted about the same period titled, “WILL YOU DYE FOR ME?” It was indeed the one and only Portia Ramaphosa who was finally taking notice of me after 34 years of my last feeble attempt!
In the intervening period, much water has passed under the bridge. Apartheid has since been dismantled and the hunted ANC is now the hunter. The great Madiba left prison, served one term as South Africa’s first black president and went on to become one of the world’s most revered citizens. He has since joined his ancestors leaving shoes that are not likely to find fitting feet in the foreseeable future. The pressing challenges of 1980 may have been surmounted but even more daunting issues have since replaced them. South Africa’s Portia may finally be the limping Nigerian boy’s friend but matters between these two great nations have since become more complex.
Nigeria’s recently re-based economy has overtaken South Africa’s to become the continent's biggest. With a population about a third of Nigeria’s, in per capita terms, South Africa is still one of Africa’s best. The import of these facts is significant: a functional synergy between South Africa and Nigeria will be Africa’s most potent platform for badly needed renaissance. Political problems, grim economic outlook, religion-inspired insurgencies and scary health concerns are once more pushing the continent to the brink. With the rest of the world also grappling with issues that are no less threatening, Africa is condemned to pull itself out of the thickening quagmire. That cannot happen as long as Nigeria and South Africa are at daggers-drawn.
The last few months have thrown up events that very nearly resulted in a diplomatic stand-off between the two countries. The SA authorities seized about $15 million cash that was being unconventionally ferried by Nigeria to purchase arms. While the ensuing brick bat lasted, another seemingly unrelated event only served to escalate an already tense scenario: over 60 South Africans lost their lives when a building belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos collapsed. It took the sagacity of SA’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Louis Mnguni, to stave off a full-blown diplomatic row.
Happily, matters are now calm and need to remain so for the benefit of both countries and Africa. Any squabbles at this point in time will be doubly costly.
On a personal level, the fact that a Southern African lass whose attention I desperately sought nearly forty years ago is finally warming up to me is an encouraging indicator that maybe, Africa’s recrudescence is finally at hand.
And to add a whimsical twist to the whole saga, SA’s Bafana Bafana denied Nigeria’s Super Eagles the chance of being at Equatorial Guinea in 2015 to defend the African Cup of Nations they won in South Africa in 2014. I hear South Africans are happy at the development. As painful as it is, I can live with it. If it is the price to pay to neutralize all outstanding animosities, it is well worth it.
Come January 2015, I’ll be sitting back to watch all matches of AFCON 2015; hoping and praying Bafana Bafana wins the tournament at the end of the day. I want Portia Ramaphosa and all of SA to be as giddy with joy as we were nearly two years ago.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.