Who Are You To The Society, The Soiler...Or The Cleaner?
Another day, another routine....already kickstarted the previous night by a bath in the backyard of House Number 59, Oroyinyin Street on Lagos Island. A two-storey building but a face-me-I-face-you affair right in front of....or the back of....Jankara market. Parallel to Idumagbo Avenue....the said market acting as a separator.
Also parallel to Idoluwo street at the back....and Reclamation Street further back. Our street ended on Adeniji Adele Road on the lagoon side and Dosunmu Street (not Docemo!). At the other end.....
(By the way, when Tiwa Savage claims to hail from Idoluwo on Lagos Island, which Idoluwo does she refer to?)
Not that this particular house didn't have bathroom and toilet facilities. In fact modern ones! Expected to be cleaned on a rotational basis by residents. But some either didn't do their bit....or the toilet got soiled....beyond imagination....by its early users after being cleaned up! It never crossed my mind to clean it. How could I? When I seldom used it....having endeavored to evacuate my bowels in "school" before the "Molue" trip back home. My thinking then....but wrong thinking!
So, my day usually started with a rude awakening by the external speakers of a nearby mosque....as it summoned Islamic adherents to "Ailah"....the morning prayers! Then a brisk splash of water to the face. A hurried donning of clothes. Wearing of shoes bereft of socks....then a yank of my book-laden bag as I set for Idumota at a trot....preparatory to yet another Molue ride to school. Combing of the hair was either done on the trek, on the bus, or forgotten altogether!
I was living with....or squatting with....my aunt in the Isale-Eko area of Lagos Island. Aunt, her hubby and kids, a stepson and I all finding space within the confines of two rooms rented as "room and parlour". Bedroom re-partitioned into two smaller cubicles with the aid of plywood!
Those were my "prelim" days. And school was Unilag....an acronym for the University of Lagos.
I strove to arrive on campus every morning early enough to breakfast at the Main Cafe and for the 8 am lecture usually in Room S026. The label affixed on the main lecture theatre of the "new" Faculty of Science.
Main Cafe was beside the Main Auditorium. God knows to what use it is now put...after eradication of subsidy on students feeds and official cafeteria arrangements.
After morning lecture came practical sessions. Somewhat similar formats for the prelim science courses in Advanced Level Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Lunch in same cafe. Never the "Iya alamala buka" between the science faculty and Henry Carr Hall. Occasional snacks in the same hall but never that Buka....or fellow students would "bug" the help out of your life! I wouldn't say I wasn't tempted!
Reading was done in the terraced S026, in the adjoining lecture rooms or on the concrete benches scattered all over the quadrangle between the Arts Faculty, the Main Auditorium, the Students Affairs building....and Mariere Hall. That was the layout in 1980.....my prelim year.....and the multi-storey Senate Building was not in existence then! I seldom used any of the libraries. Not the Main Library. Save for the "Educo" Library for reading... After supper at either the "Educo" Cafe....or the New Hall Cafe. The New Hall had not been balkanized then!
Supper was preceded by games at the Sports Complex....and followed by evening "prep" at Educo Library as mentioned.
But I must mention siesta at El Kanemi Hall....in a room full of classmates in the Science Faculty....prior to "games".....and sometimes after night "prep" especially when I needed to evacuate my bowels....before embarking on my homeward journey!
Not that there were no paid cleaners in El Kanemi Hall. They came in the mornings...so I was told. To clean out the bathrooms and toilets....only for guys to mess up the place as the day rolled on....
But there was this particular guy....much senior to us Jambites.....of Igbo extraction I was told.....who regularly, quietly, lovingly and painstakingly undertook this job of toilet cleaning late in the evenings! You would only hear my mates say: "Omo Ibo yen ma tun ti clean toilet yen"..... None of us knew him...and he never sought to be known. He did this noble chore quietly....unlike the paid cleaners whose arrival on this "scene of shit" was loudly heralded by shouts of "oloshi" and "oloriburuku"!
My heart goes out this morning to this Anonymous "Cleaner" of Society....
And so I ask you who you are....
A cleaner....or SOILER...of the Nigerian society!
POST SCRIPT
Proper medical studies at the College of Medicine were preceded by a year of preliminary studies....aka prelim....at the Faculty of Science located on the Main Campus of the University of Lagos.
Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.