09/09/2023
I AM LOOKING FOR THEM!
After fifteen years away from Surulere, where I cut my career tooth, nostalgia has been seizing me for want of past friends. Some had returned to home states, just like I did in 2008. But my angst arises from missing peer faces on the streets, every morning I walk through Adelabu Street into Ilorin Street, where a longstanding friend runs Emem's Haven, 13 B Adelabu Street.
There is no mistaking the serenity of Emem's Haven given its tug-away location on quiet Ilorin Street, meeting Agbonyin Avenue at one end and Adelabu Street on two ends. Of course, there is no better place for a screenwriter, who has just been laid off a full-time role, now back on the 'streets,' which he has had to walk most of his career. More so, the amiable ownership of Emem's Haven that has over the years been such an unforgettable friend added me back on its 'Lagos friendship list,' since my return in 2019, to live and work in Victoria Island (not Surulere).
Yes, patrons of Emem's Haven get to become a brethren or sistren, after continuous enjoyment of 'always' tasty Efik-Ibibio (not Calabar) flavored meals out of its 13B, Ilorin Street, Surulere address.
So back to hustling; but something keeps bothering me. Why would anyone keep identifying me as a writer or Screenwriter, if in all of my career I have screen/copywritten, voiced, and produced radio and TV commercials and documentaries? To be immodest, I produced a morning show in a defunct TV station many years back as lead of a full crew. So people should be reminded that while I may not have shot my first short or feature-length live-action drama screenplay, I am also a knack screenwriter waiting to deliver. Really, the reason I went out the second time this Saturday to hunt for familiar peer faces, but kept getting shocked at seeing a new generation, Gen Z!
I took an early morning stroll as the sun fought the cloudy skies that poured down rain the previous Friday night. I stared in faces for reciprocated recognition by male and female joggers, none would happen. I hoped that before finishing off Akerele Street at Adenrian Ogusanya, someone might just show up, familiar. None! I took my Huawei Pad, just in case a familiar showed up, he or she would first suffer intrusive photoshoot, before recognition, laughter, huggies, and hey come along.
What would you expect if you had met a colleague like Grace, my coursemate, this year at TBS, after 30 years? Loud laughter and huggies, 'How about him or her?' after, 'Where have you been?' And I met another career associate driving by, two Saturdays ago on Olufemi Street. Really, relocating so Surulere from Victoria Island has been one nostalgic mood swing to the other. But each morning I stroll through the gates at Emem Restaurant, 13B, Ilorin Street, and occupy a space provided by kindness on a table wide enough to take my Huawei Pad, I write!
Is that why they call me a writer most of the time? Don't take jobs away from me please. I am back on the freelance street! Laugh out loud! But I am still looking for them; friends, associates, and colleagues from 1993, when I returned to Lagos. Yes, my earliest arrival in Lagos was 1980, when one of my many talents took me like a whirlwind to Lagos. Look out for the story about to be titled Lessons of Lagos.
Surulere Stadium! Through the gates I wandered in with memories flooding my conscious look- out-for-them. The echoes of cheering fans, the smell of popcorn from the nearby vendors, and the feeling of camaraderie in the air—all of it rushed back to me. Those were back in years when National Stadium, Surulere, often decorating Surulere as Nigeria's Sports City used to ring. I looked for familiar faces, but all were strange and mainly Gen Z!
I spotted a group gathered frontward of O Jays Nightclub! Music , Terminator fought hard to counter Wiz Kid's track, which I can't remember from another group; indeed, as many groups so would be different music to motivate various exercises. I stopped short of asking a woman, in pure bliss of sexy leotard, if she knew me. Silly! That would be! Because she could retort, 'Are you sure your memory is not failing you?' Maybe; I mean, if you are nine years short of three scores and ten, your memory could fail. But though I have not had a well-flavored cup of espresso like when working on Victoria Island and resorting to bitter kola and alligator pepper, my memory has become the greatest hard disk of the life of me.
Embarrassed I stared away from her curviness, but my eyes caught more curvy women stretching and jumping among men as the exercise director, an athletic young man drove them to rhyme with the Terminator soundtrack . I whipped out my Huawei, and got pictures, including men, who surprisingly were not distracted by the curves. Really, even as the exercise director, kept hinting someone, '...fit sn**ch your girlfriend!' As if it is a new thing in lower-middle-class Surulere, where many Nollywood stars ran from to inhabit, newly built Lekki just to show class. Yes in the sense that sn**ching boyfriends and girlfriends could get you a space in highbrow Lekki about 15 years ago.
Someone moaned in my ears. I turned around to see a young man, who passed a warning from his boss, one of the organizers of O Jays Nollywood Joggers as shouted by the exercise director. 'Sir you are not allowed to shoot this event!' 'Okay! Okay! No problem, I picked my umbrella, dropped my Pad into its carry-bag and moved away. I made a mental note to get around to a staircase and film them from behind later...to be continued.
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