Cousin
Dudu had opened the door for me and my brother to travel for the
first time since our parents' separation. It was the middle of the
year 2010. The same year that I lost a dear friend in a boat accident
in Lagos Island. Cousin Dudu was inviting us both to a family reunion
at our hometown in Kunukunuama in Delta State which according to him
had changed since the reign of Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo
a.k.a Tompolo, the veteran militant, whose protest wars had earned
our people a spot in the nation’s polity. His argument was that
a ‘mini London’ was gradually being erected in Gbaramatu
(all thanks to the militancy movement led by the same man) after the
bombing of the sister communities by the Military Joint Task Force
(JTF) in 2009 which would usher in a lot of radical development in
the coming years.
He
also revealed that oil bunkery was booming in the area alongside the
newly established Amnesty International Programme inaugurated by the
late President Umaru Musa Yar’dua. Although oil bunkery was
prohibited by the federal government and defaulters were mostly
arrested on sight, it still meant that Gbaramatu was a small treasure
island waiting for all to loot. It would therefore provide an avenue
for my brother and I to change our lives he pitched. So enticed by
these promises, Tony and I decided to hit the road by the end of July
2010.
When
we arrived at Effurun in Delta State, the first thing we noticed was
the big electronic billboard mounted at the Roundabout. It was like a
dancing show of the Deltan life—the different forms of
entertainment displayed in it along with the boisterous food sellers
and the entire dynamics of city life captured even by the roadside
traders. The driver had told us that Warri still lay ahead so he
pulled over for some of the passengers to alight while the rest of us
could continue with our journey. It was such a beautiful sight; the
sort of golden clarity that you expect when entering into an oil
State at dusk. In spite of the heavy downpour, the whole roads still
stretched before us with slow moving vehicles and notorious
motorcyclists in wet raincoats and boots meandering in-between
trailers and mini buses.
The
screen was a soft halo of alluring colours, beautiful to behold even
though threatened by the heavy downpour as if the magical moments
displayed on it provoked the entire heavens to be let loose. But
despite this, the TV's face still carried the memory of oil flames,
of business dreams rolling out from the media sphere, of voices
rising from creeks that never made it into history books so that
before us, the Niger Delta stretched out like an open plane, its
corners snaking into old and new buildings, residential areas,
streets and lanes.
Soon
we were passing monumental places such as the Refinery Road
Junction, Effurun/Jakpa Road Junction, Airport Road Junction and
finally Enerhen Junction which for whatever
reason, had been
made very popular amongst us Lagosians even before we ever dreamt of
embarking on this journey. So it seemed that we had come to see the
place Nigerians called The Big Heart, for whatever
reason.
However to me, following the days to come, it was going to be a
blessing and a curse. An oil country that was also the country’s
kitchen, its lungs and its wound.
We
made a final stop at Third Marine Gate along Warri/Sapele Road and
boarded two motorbikes with each of our luggage sitting between us
and the motorcyclists to Garage/Cemetery Road where we were to pass
the night at a relative’s. There we were introduced properly to
cousin Dudu whom we were both meeting for the first time in twenty
two years since my birth. He had since been waiting for our safe
arrival at this very address. So we hugged one another and he kissed
my cheeks happy to be seeing us both for the first time. Then later
we were offered cold drinks and Jampie as dinner.
Quite a
treat coming from a bachelor host. We laughed and talked well into
the night.
The
following morning, we boarded bikes again to Dolphin
Waterside at
Igbe-Ijoh Market, and boarded a thirteen-seater capacity speedboat
that was bound for Kunukunuama in Gbaramatu Kingdom. As we pulled out
from the dock and the driver kicked the two 75-horse powered engines
to life, the river became a mirror in diverse places. It streaked
with a rainbow sheen of crude oil. On it were wilting water hyacinths
and dirts and feaces as well as large wooden boats for ferrying goods
and products to and fro the inland villages and canoes with fishermen
casting their hooks, lines and nets. Soon, the mangroves rose on
either side of us like moving walls, their foliages and tangled roots
like fists breaking through the blackened mud. Cousin Dudu, our
guide, told us tales about each community we passed with an easy
rhythm against the backdrop of the outboard engines.
Throughout
the trip, we saw smokes rising behind thick bushes in the forests.
Large wooden boats were seen transporting crude oil as they navigated
the rivers in old and newYamaha Engines while empty
ones
equally passed us in the same manner. Young boys and men in boxer
shorts and knickers sat in the boats minding their businesses.
Sometimes, they called out to people they knew in some of the passing
boats and waved frantically at them. Once in awhile, the boat in
which we were shook from side to side as it bent to avoid the in
coming waves. This got me really scared and I was always screaming.
“Do
not be afraid.” Cousin Dudu assured me. “Here,” he
said, “the water is road that leads to several other
communities. It is market and everything else too.” Then he
pointed to a canoe in the far distance where two boys no older than
ten paddled with boyish dexterity. “They’re going to
fish.” He said. Their empty bodies, dark and probably wet
glistened in the late morning sun, the river already a part of their
morning. The boat sliced through creeks interrupted occasionally by
bird calls, monkey babbles and the distant thrum of in coming
engines.
We
passed women washing clothes on concrete jetties, their hands beating
rhythms into wet fabric. Some sparsely dressed in loin clothes
exposing their dangling or rounded breasts while others were fully
dressed. Some children waved at us, others swam in the cool river,
their laughter carrying us across the waterways. In between these, we
saw sand diggers digging sand from the edges of the deep, their naked
backsides hanging out of the waters, dark and slippery like
catfishes.
We
stopped at several army checkpoints in military houseboats. Each time
our arms were raised up towards them in dramatic surrender. But what
were we surrendering to? I wanted to know. So when we left the first
check point, I asked cousin Dudu what it meant to raise hands to
these soldiers. He said that the government was afraid of being
surprised again by our people. That “they
don't
want to be shot at again in the groin hence our punishment.”
But to me, it appeared that they weren't just afraid, they were busy
guarding something that belonged to the government of the day.
And
so when we reached a fishing camp before crossing towards the mouth
of Gbaramatu Kingdom, the boat driver killed the engines and walked
on the edge of the boat to the front deck so as to deliver some
‘waybills’. The village seemed to float above the
mangrove marshes. The houses were made of woods and dried thatches,
their bottoms raised on stilts, and leaning slightly but standing
strong against time and tide. Crabs and mudskippers were seen feeding
under the houses in the low tide.
A
group of children ran around the pier naked. In the distance, some
people babbled in the local Ijaw dialects. A young teenage mother
with her baby strapped to her back ran towards us. She spoke in Mein
dialect asking the driver if someone had sent her family some
loaves of bread to which he rudely responded and that sort
of
upset the lady. In reaction, she began to rain invectives at him.
Somewhere
farther down, a man in his fifties or so sat in his hut swallowing
starch and soup. In front of him was a scrawny dog wagging its tail.
The man made no attempt to feed it with his special delicacy except
to throw fish bones at it which he had chewed clean. The dog in
return dove at the goodies regardless and feasted on the bones.
There
were another group of young girls and women in a circle scaling bonga
fish, their hands moving fast, knives flashing in the sun.
The
smell of crude oil and smoke mixed with drying fish lingered in the
air. One elderly man soon emerged at the dock and his potbelly
greeted us. His voice was slow, deliberate, as though shaped by the
tides beating against the sides of our boat.
“Where
are my snuff and cigarettes Andrew, bei?” he asked.
“I
don't have them Paale.” The driver replied grumpily. He was now
rearranging the loads in the boat. It looked like we would pull out
soon. “You can check the next speed boat coming. I wasn't given
your snuff to deliver to you old man.” He said and walked back
to his engines which he started right away.
In
the boat a man was saying that, “Once, fish was plenty in this
area. Now, sometimes you catch nothing but thick, black mud.”
His eyes shifted toward the horizon where, faintly, a gas flare
burned even in daylight. “Do you see that picture over there in
the distance, that is our death sentence burning brightly over our
heads. It's just a matter of time, and we will all be dying like
those poisoned fishes. Mark my words.”
“Ndoro!”
The driver called out to a man standing on the pier now as we pulled
out slowly “please, there is a small black polythene bag beside
that garri sack, give it to Mama Ebike. It contains some meat and
soup condiments. Please tell her it's from her husband. She'll
understand. Dooh, thank you.” He said and sped up
the
engines.
“No
wahala farewell my brother.” Ndoro waved and we bounced off the
waters beating against the boisterous waves.
“So
this stupid girl was actually insulting me because of bread, abei
do you see her with her thin legs and malnourished baby? Can
you
imagine her guts! She had the effrontery to insult me, Andrew. Ahhh I
don't blame her. I rather blame this useless job of driving boats,
otherwise how could she dare to insult me? Anyways, I think I shall
report her to her husband and parents when next I see them. That's
what I'm going to do.” He was telling someone else in the
boat.
We
continued to bounce off the waters stopping and offloading goods and
passengers at Okenrekoko Town and Kurutie before heading towards
Kunukunuama our final destination. When we arrived, we docked at a
wooden pier in front of two houses made of thatch roofs, the boat
died for us to alight. When we touched ground, everyone ran to
embrace us. It wasn't difficult to finally acclimatize with your own.
“Welcome!
Welcome oh my children! You are both welcome home. How are you both?”
Greeted an elderly, bald headed man and sparsely dressed in wrapper
and a somewhat dirty looking singlet. “Hey you must be Funke,
my daughter.” He said mentioning my Yoruba name and touching my
face with his crooked palms. A symbol of long years of fishing and
woodcutting I guessed. How did he know my name? I wondered.
“Yes
sir.” I replied holding and feeling the cracks on his rough
palms and looking at cousin Dudu for answers.
“Children
meet your big daddy, my father Olotu Paale. He's both your father's
elder brother.” Said Cousin Dudu.
“Wow!
It's so nice to finally meet you sir.” Tony and I said beaming.
“And
you must be Anthony, Demote’s son.”
“Yes
sir.” Tony replied and we were both ushered into a different
building upland. It was later known that it belonged to a distant
uncle called Friday Deinkedein.
After
we had settled in, they gave us fresh food to eat. It was kirigena
served with usi (starch) and eba (mine was eba
because I
didn't like the usi). It felt like plastic in the
mouth so I
stopped eating it a long time ago. For others, it was quite a
sumptuous delicacy that went well with any kind of soup. So I held
the efere (native clay dish) in my hand and
thought about how
hospitality could survive even where prosperity did not.
One
night, we stumbled upon a particular festival. It was called Dinnama
festival. It could be likened to the Yoruba Oro
Festival
celebrated in the west. So it wasn't that strange to me.
However,
what I didn't understand was why it was coming at this particular
time of the year. It was a festival to cleanse the lands of premature
deaths and evil tidings even as the year was coming to a wrap, Olotu
Paale explained. And during the daytime, warning had already been
sent out by the Amakosuowei to everyone to stay
indoors
especially the women's folks and non-initiates. The offenders were
going to be penalised when caught either by flogging or by the
payment of fines. The town crier had said this and had continued to
go round the town with his piece of information.
By
eleven p.m, eerie sounds began to roll through the darkness, carrying
this blood cuddling shrill over the night atmosphere. In the darkness
of my room in cousin Mike's apartment, I could hear the vuuvuu
sound of their wicked instrumentation, the shrieking of young
boys and those beating at the windows of residents so as to instill
fear in the women. No-one dared to caution the boys or shout at them
to stop. To do so was highly sacrilegious and thus would involve the
entire community coming down heavily on such fellow. Besides, nobody
knew what they did even to produce such eerie notes in the air. But
they very much instilled the intended fear in me. And by morning, it
was reported that some people’s goats and fowls had gone
missing but we all knew where they went.
At
last, Olotu Paale told us that the initiates had the right to kill
and eat whatever animal they found wandering at night during the
festival. But we knew that wasn't the case, because some of us
actually heard them vandalizing a woman's poultry cage near the
network mast on the night of the so-called celebration. Accordingly,
Olotu Paale explained that the festival did not just cleanse the
lands, it also honoured the spirits of the river guardians who kept
the balance. “When we celebrate the Dinnama,” he
said, “we are not only asking them to cleanse our land, we're
also asking them to remember us.”
And
so in the flicker of firelight, children’s eyes shone wide
while waiting for the evening meal that I was busy preparing over the
fireplace. We were all absorbing myth as truth, history as rhythm.
But then I thought about how stories here were fast getting lost.
Nobody wanted to tell them again because technology was fast
overtaking everyone else with modernity. Since our coming here, we
had only enjoyed such folktales on very rare occasion. And they were
mostly told in the kitchens when we waited for dinner but again that
was because somebody had cared to ask for one.
***
Sadly
enough, not all sights were so poetic. Along some creeks, pipelines
cut through villages like scars across a body. Sometimes going to
fishing with cousin Dudu and his children, we passed the blackened
remains of illegal refineries, where men had once cooked crude oil
into fuel in rusty drums. The ground was charred, the water slick
with poison.
On
one such occasion, when we rushed Olotu Paale to the clinic at
Okenrekoko for an operation, I spoke to a young man who admitted he
had worked in one of those bush refineries. His face had burnt scars
with soot that never quite washed away. Evidence of a failing society
masterminded by greed.
“It
is dangerous,” he said, almost regretfully.
“I
know.” I said matter-of-factly. “My uncle has one of
those refineries too in the creeks beyond Ibafan community. I've seen
it with my own two naked eyes. The fire can kill you you know.”
“Yeah
I know. But hunger will kill you faster if you don't work to survive.
So you see why a man must do what he's got to do.”
“I
quite disagree with you bros. Look at your friend. He doesn't look
too good to me. I hope he survives and heals.” I said walking
away.
From
the way he spoke, I knew he wasn't an Ijaw man, he
was
probably an Urhobo or Isoko person. Yet the Nigerian economy had
driven him and his friends to hell to fight for their stomachs’
survival. Because it was always about the ingratitude of the human
belly.
He
was sitting beside another victim on the left. Like himself perhaps
these ones would both survive the hand of the cold flames and live to
tell another girl like me who would care to know. I only shook my
head in pity and went to join my cousins in the waiting room. But
still his words lingered long after we left. Hunger will kill
you
faster…
***
Now
if the land told its stories through scars, the people told theirs
through food. I ate madiga bread and butter for the
time in
Burutu. Through my culinary skills, we were able to cook and eat bush
pig meat pepper soup one time after uncle Friday returned from his
bush refinery. And later countless fish pepper soups that made our
eyes water and hearts race, its fire softened only by the sweetness
of the river fishes and meat. Banga and ugbagba soups
often
came thick, red or plain without palm oil and fragrant with palm
fruits and aromatic spices which were eaten with either starch or
eba. Also, we ate dry ifiniye with roasted or
peppered smoked
fish as well as with ngbosu—yellow fermented fruits
made
from wild raffia palms.
Markets
hummed with life. In Burutu, I watched people engaged in trade by
barter first hand. I was shocked seeing that it was 2010 and yet
people still embraced this type of economic trade. They exchanged
fishes with basic things such as salt, seasoning cubes, detergents,
yams, rice, beans and potatoes etc. Traders shouted prices over heaps
of readymade clothes, okrika wears, shoes and
sandals, dried
crayfish and raw periwinkles. Boys carrying loads of various items to
and fro the waterside. At my cousin's jetty, the air was dense with
the smell of both locally refined petrol and the original PMS bought
at Warri filling stations which they mixed together for quick sales.
This was basically the business of cousin Dudu’s wife in Burutu
and she sold to both boat drivers and generator owners.
***
Everywhere
I turned, contradiction stared back in my face. In some areas,
children paddled to and fro schools beside oil pipelines. This was a
land so green with life, yet its rivers slick with crude oil mess and
wastes from oil bunkery; people laughing loudly even while speaking
of death and losses.
Standing
on the jetty at sunset one evening at Kunukunuama, I watched
fishermen returned with their nets heavy. But behind them, a boy of
about nineteen years old was fighting for his dear life. Apparently,
he had just had a kiss with the spirits of quick money and had been
charred beyond recognition. Everywhere in the community, people
wailed in pity for him. “Poor boy!” They mourned. Earlier
in the day, it was reported that a camp had gone up in flames killing
some people, little did we know that it was where he worked. A doctor
was called upon to attend to him but it was all for the show as
everyone knew the boy was no longer with us. And it was so that
beauty and tragedy tugged side by side, neither one canceling out the
other. But life went on with the rest of the world.
Burial
parties were organised as well as the usual yuletide celebrations
marked with the slaughtering of cows and sharing of rice amongst
residents according to clans and the different idumu from
which
each person had originated from. Most of the men wined and
dined
from morning till dusk eating, drinking and smoking like no man's
business. They wanted to have fun with every new lady that came to
town. But my uncle and his children had warned them to steer clear of
their household. Thus I and my other female cousins were spared of
their shenanigans. Kunukunuama men were a happy folks, eating and
drinking making merry with their friends and neighbours.
***
Eventually
during my last days in Kunukunuama, the rivers seemed to move slower,
as though reluctant to let me go. It was December 31. I thought of my
uncle’s words the day after that scary festival, “the
river is our mother.” And I wondered how a mother could both
nurture and wound, how children could both depend on her and fight
her with their illicit oil business. The Niger Delta was not a
postcard, I had realised. It wasn't the kind of place you visit for
comfort. It was a place that asked too many questions of eco-justice,
of survival, of memory and losses. And yet, even so till now, it is a
land that had refused to be simplified as such.
Therefore
as the boat carried me back toward the city, to Warri and then to
Bayelsa State where I planned to enjoy the rest of the holidays, I
knew I had not just visited a place of my roots, but that I had
encountered a truth that showed beauty and burden could flow
together, like two currents of the same river, forever inseparable.
