I haven't been to Ojuelegba market since I was a kid

by Jeffery Uzoukwu (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Nigeria

‘Ojuelegba!’ ‘Ojuelegba!’, screamed the conductor as the yellow bus pulled over to the side to pick up passengers. You had barely sat down before the bus descended the bridge onto Lagos mainland. You were surprised at the amount of people that were in one space at the same time. Ojuelegba market had the malodourous mixture of sweat; fresh meat and fish; sweaty hair; toilet; stale waste products – rotten food. Empty decomposed cartons, baby diapers, face wipers, formed a pyramid of dirt– a dinner table feast for vultures and egrets. It made you choke and, occasionally, you released the chokehold to take in huge gulps of polluted air. Market sellers approached you, people grabbed your arm in attempts to make you buy from them: ‘Na sweater you dey find?’ ‘I get correct jacket for you.’ ‘Americana, wetin you dey find inside Ojuelegba market.’ ‘This sun go soon make you black.’ *** ‘Sir, after you have finished buying can I carry it?’ You turned around to see a boy of about 16. He was almost your height and dark in complexion. He had an empty plastic basin in his hand and a tattered cloth around his neck. ‘How can you help me’, you said ‘if you buy anything, just give me and I will put it in my basin and bring it to your car’. ‘what is your name?’ ‘Ahmed.’ ‘I am Jeffery.’ ‘Do you know where I can get amala?’ The amala joint was a small shed made of sticks and corrugated roof. The mama put, as they called her, was a voluptuous woman who never looked at her customers. She had two girls: one of them collected the orders and the other served, while she handled the money. Market men and women sat with their fingers deep inside the bowl of amala with ewedu, red stew and gbegiri. Your mouth watered and you wanted to sit amongst these people who ate with their hands and eat with your hands. You ordered. You ate with Ahmed. Aunty Ijeoma said she should pick you up at five. It happened just as you and your aunty were about to ascend Eko bridge, one of the three bridges that connected Lagos mainland and Lagos island. You saw the crowd first. As aunty Ijeoma drove nearer to a crowd of people gathered- snapping their fingers, shaking their heads, some swaying side by side with hands on their heads- you noticed they were wailing too. She slowed down and peered at the scene, you peered too. She screamed: ‘Jesus.’ The sound of her voice flung you back to your seat. You managed to catch a glimpse of an upturned truckload of tomatoes and onions, lying dead on the potholed tarred road, red and diesel mixed insolubly on the ground. Some people picking up un-bruised tomatoes and onions greedily and putting them into their bags and sack, others wailing, and pulling, what you imagined was a charred human hand. Your aunty wound down her window and asked a fat woman in a faded green lace: ‘Anybody die?’ She replied with an exaggerated lament in her voice: ‘Yes o! All of them, even the driver.’ ‘One pregnant woman and him small child wey dey cross road follow die.’ Aunty Ijeoma loved driving and she wanted to drove in Lagos. As she drove she looked in the rear mirror frequently and signalled as she changed lanes. And whenever we heard the sound of a car horn, as we often did, we looked back and around us to look for what went wrong. Soon, you were to find out that safe driving in Lagos meant incompetent driving – especially when it is a woman behind the wheels. As aunty Ijeoma slowly drove 18 km on to the Lagos Island (she would have sped up, but the potholes made it impossible), the sanguine atmosphere was filled with a sudden melancholy: the street littered with empty sachets of pure-water, the rickety kiosks with the rusty corrugated rooftops, the mud filled puddles, the roadside gutters filled with blackened water, the harsh sound of fuel-ran generators, all faded into: beautiful gated houses, sparsely littered roads, street light that shown bright amber, silent diesel-ran generators.