How Did We Get Here?

By Helen Paul

I remember some decades ago while growing up in Fadeyi, Lagos, only a few families had television sets, and NTA was the only major channel, and you couldn’t watch anything until around 4 pm when they would officially open. So, having a TV was a big deal. Neighbours would troop into your apartment to watch, especially when it was time for a particular sitcom or football match involving the Nigerian national team. As the TV owner, you must also fling your windows open because the crowd scrambling to get a glimpse of your TV from outside would be more than those inside your living room. If you were the child of such a ‘rich’ man, everybody around would compete to treat you nicely, because anything otherwise could mean they would be banished from watching the TV. Don’t even try to offend anybody in that house.

In our house, it was Uncle Fide and two other persons who had a TV. Other neighbours would gather in their room, some peeping through the windows to watch. The ‘tiny’ ones like me would stand on a stool to have a view. On a particular day, people gathered at Uncle Fide’s apartment to watch a football match between Nigeria’s Super Eagles and Angola, I think. I was never a football enthusiast, but I just wanted to feel among, so I decided to join the ‘crowd’ to watch the match. I couldn’t sit on the floor in Uncle Fide’s room because I could be stampeded from the wild jubilations, so I chose to watch from the window. Everything was going on smoothly, with different funny and half-baked analyses from the men.

All of a sudden, I heard people shouting, “Haaa… Heyyy… Oparaji! Oparaji!” and they started trooping out and running towards the National Stadium in Surulere. I had no idea what was going on and who Oparaji was, but I just decided to join them in running and shouting “Oparaji… Oparaji” until we got to the National Stadium. It was there that I realised a certain Nigerian player named Samuel Okwaraji had slumped and died during the match. In the process, I lost sight of my neighbours and didn’t know my way back home, so I just kept wandering about till I found myself at NTA Tejuosho, where they paraded me and other lost kids.

At NTA, they rubbed white powder on our faces and, in turns, asked us to come in front of the camera to say our name and that of our parents. When it was my turn, I boldly did that and could hear them saying, “This one is smart…” Some minutes later, I saw a neighbour walk out of the NTA premises and ran after her without the people there noticing. By the time I got outside, I couldn’t find her again, so I decided to continue trekking till I somehow found my way back home.

I had settled down at home after dinner when some neighbours rushed into our apartment to inform my grandmother that I was missing. NTA had just shown my face in their news. My grandma was confused, telling the neighbours I was not missing, but they insisted. She called me out of the room, and despite seeing me, one of the women suggested that maybe it was my ghost they were seeing, that the real me was missing. I disliked that woman for making my grandma give me the beating of my life that day.

To be honest, I realised my love for the cameras that day and was determined to become a star one day, but how and when, I had no idea. The rest today is history.

Spending my childhood days in Nigeria was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I still remember those good old days when we freely played around the neighbourhood and community without the fear of being kidnapped or facing any danger. The memories of ‘boju boju,’ ‘suwe,’ ‘police and thief,’ skipping rope, and sand moulding still create a sense of adrenaline. At that time, it was a collective responsibility of the community to raise every child. A Yoruba adage says, “Oju meji lo n b’omo, igba oju lo n wo,” meaning (it takes a parent to give birth to a child, but it takes hundreds of people to train the child). Such was the case then.

In the absence of your parents, neighbours—even strangers—would protect you and scold you when necessary. This was a norm. We truly bonded like one big family, irrespective of our tribe or religion.

But today, it’s sickening how tribalism, religion, and insecurity continue to tear us apart. It is pathetic how we have cheaply lost our moral values as a people. It is unbelievable how our society has suddenly become insecure. The rate at which people are being kidnapped for money rituals and other purposes is alarming. Now, we celebrate immorality over good morals. We worship people who flaunt ill-gotten wealth and denigrate men and women who are diligently hardworking. The quest for material things seems to have extinguished the fear of God in us. This was not the Nigeria we grew up in.

How are we going to explain to this ‘Gen Z’ generation that without phones, the internet, and digital television, our childhood was fun-filled and adventurous? Evil people have always been around, but not as much as we have them now.

May God heal our land.