She was determined to drag me into her world. Into her happiness. I am familiar with that I-want-you-in-on-my-conversation-as-a-third-party behaviour which I have classified over the years as the airport specialty of any newly-minted Nigerian arriviste.
When a Nigerian has arrived, has made it, has arranged, has hammered; when God has helped him as we say, you will know at the airport. In the lounge or on the plane, he will hold a very important telephone conversation at the decibel level of a wounded male lion. He will ensure that everybody within a one-mile radius hears his conversation. Flight attendants will have to remind him at least five times that it is now time to switch off devices. He will yak on:
“Hakeem, hello, Hakeem, can you hear me? Ok, we are in the lounge now. Sorry we are no longer in the lounge. We are now in the plane. Make sure you park the Range till I get back. Nobody should use it. Use the Prado to run errands for Madam. That is how you came to pick me with the Prado when I returned from Japan last week. I don’t want to see any Prado when I return from this trip to Germany next tomorrow o. Come with the Range. Ehen”
He will apologize to his immediate neighbour for being so loud and mumble complaints about the drivers we employ nowadays. He will then phone a Governor, a Minister, and a Senator in that order. Needless to say, the conversation will be on top of his voice with the familiar Nigerian keywords: “contract”, “mobilization”, etc.
Coming from this background, I was surprised that the Lady who insisted on dragging me into her world yesterday was Canadian: an Oyinbo woman who looked very much in her mid sixties. We were at the airport in Toronto, waiting to catch the flight to Amsterdam. She was on Skype talking excitedly. Very happy.
I took the seat beside her, flashed the perfunctory Canadian smile and tried to get busy on my own laptop. I couldn’t concentrate. Five minutes into her lovey-dovey talk with her Skype interlocutor, I started to get a feeling that she wanted me in on the conversation.
Network issues. She lost the Skype connection. That was her opportunity to strike a conversation with me. She asked me the usual questions which required me to answer that I am from Nigeria. She could hardly contain her excitement. She nearly screamed.
“My sweetheart is Nigerian too”! I’m on my way to Nigeria to meet him! I was just talking to him on Skype.”
Now she has my full attention.
Then came the story of how they met online and have been chatting and Skyping everyday since they met in January. She is traveling now to meet him in real life for the first time.
In addition to having my attention, she has also now activated all my 419 detection sensors. She continued with the story of their love made in heaven. This about a man she has never met. Her Skype started to buzz again.
“Ah, that’s my baby calling back! I’ll introduce you two.”
I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the fellow who popped up on the screen. I was generous and estimated his age at 25 years-old. So this is the fellow that this sixty something year-old Canadian has been waxing ecstatic about all evening?
“Honey, you won’t believe this! I just made another Nigerian friend! Let me introduce you to…”
Click! The connection dies again. The woman grumbles about internet and Skype connection issues with Nigeria. Poor woman. She did not know that this is perhaps the only disconnection that was not accidental since she started dating her Nigerian grandson in January.
I bore the moral burden of her situation on the flight across the Atlantic. Should I have told her? Should I have said something?
In Amsterdam, we meet again in the lounge. We exchanged warm pleasantries. She is now only six hours away from the love of her life and she is behaving like a kitten. I’ve never seen someone this smitten by love in a long time.
Should I say something? What about my country? Is the common humanity I share with this woman being complicated by my loyalty to my country? If I tell her about my fears, what about the reputation and the integrity of a country I pretty much live my life for now? The love of country versus human solidarity.
I recall a situation last year when some folks in South Africa wired money meant for me to their Nigerian subsidiary for onward transfer to me. It was just $100 dollars but the folks at the Nigerian end quaffed the money and started giving me the run around. I was in an impossible situation. I could report them to the South Africans. However, our South African friends already stereotype Nigerians as God’s only mistake. To tell them that some folks embezzled a mere 100 dollars would just add to the stereotype. Bamidele Ademola-Olateju and I weighed the situation and we decided that I must forego that money for the sake of country. You don’t go about telling career anti-Nigeria xenophobes in South Africa that some folks in Nigeria “ate the money” they sent.
Do I protect country and not discuss my fears and suspicions with this woman? The human took over. Human empathy and solidarity overwhelmed me. Over lounge coffee, I started to ask her how much she really knows her man. I was looking for a way to at least say:
Be wise.
Be clever.
Be smart.
Wear your head to Lagos, not your heart.
She noticed my drift and stiffened. I could sense the hostility building. The familiar scenario of the unassailable loyalty of a woman in love. Love and loyalty make the man her world. She will not tolerate any negative talk about her honey. My suspicion was negative talk and she was going to react and put me in my place.
Wisely but sadly, I changed the topic to “Nigerian weather” and “Nigerian culture” and her face shone again! She had a thousand questions for me. We parted about 30 minutes ago to head out for our different connecting flights to Africa.
Me to train doctoral students and early-career University lecturers.
She to meet fate, destiny, and perhaps find love.
My last thought was about the possibility of a young man somewhere in Lagos now saying: I don hammer.
Whoever invented, “it’s complicated”, to describe matters of the heart deserves a Nobel Prize.
Credit: Pius Adesanmi.