INTEMPERANCE

I apologize profusely for being mute the last two Sundays, I have been around Nigeria in ten days. Starting from the North Central, the home of peace and tourism located on an elevated upland with steep sides and flat surfaces, I moved down South into the heart beat of the nation, I navigated further South to the big heart and with my compass pointing west, I entered the centre of Excellence. Eko o ni baje! It was an awesome experience. Road trips are for me a hobby, “j’aime voyager par rue avec les voitures” as the French would say but it would have been a more delightful experience if our roads were any better. I am keeping the hope alive without despair that this administration will lead us closer to Canaan.

My trip around the country ignited my passion for nature more than ever before and caused an explosion in my level of appreciation for the wonders of creation and I daresay with all veracity that all things are bright and beautiful. From the small shrubs and scanty forests of the North to the thick vegetation of the west and to the red colored muddy soil of the coastal areas. The way the atmosphere changes subtly as you gradually descend the geographical slope and the way your body responds in acclimatization to the various environmental changes. For us up the slope, temperature adjustment is the hardest change we face down the slope. I have enough heat rashes on my face as evidence!

 I am back up the slope now and writing from up here, a practice I sincerely have missed. Here is a little metro logical report-the weather is just perfect and if you have never been up here, I recommend you consider it a paramount Christmas vacation spot for 2012; I could find you a concierge!

Today, I crave your indulgence to do a little sermonizing. Lagos is beautiful place no doubt except of course for the beyond hundred percent congestion, a nightmare for a claustrophobic. I have heard people say severally that there is no place like Lagos. I would have objected vehemently to their claims but it turns out to be just hard fact that there is no city on the surface of the earth that could measure up to Lagos in intemperance. They are therefore absolutely correct to say that the city is sui generis!

Mon Dieu! That’s “my God” in French by the way. I wanted desperately to keep off this because all my mental warning signals just turned bright red but it would be an inexplicable injustice to my good sense of reasoning and judgment if I don’t share this via an admonishing perspective.

All I started hearing from the second I entered Ojota till I got to my destination were curses and all manners of swear words- “were”, “olosi” among a host of others. I was headed to Surulere and so I took the “ojuelegba-stadium-barracks” bus. At Obanikoro, a beautiful fair skinned lady joined us. She was looking totally poised and sophisticated. She sat next to me and I was silently admiring her but my high esteem of her was short lived. It died the moment a conversation ensued between her and the bus conductor.

Mon Grand Dieu! I shrunk at the level of obscenities that rushed out hysterically, sans a tinge of circumspection from this young damsel’s buccal cavity like fiends that have being newly exorcised. An outrageous shock consumed me as I felt gravely ashamed for the unladylike lady. I began to wonder how on earth a lady could be so unscrupulous but the answer was not farfetched. I smiled as I remembered the sign that greeted me as I approached the centre of excellence, THIS IS LAGOS!

I chuckled, nodding simultaneously as I murmured to myself welcome to Lagos.

That night as I lay down to sleep, the scenario began to play afresh in my head. Such intemperance I hissed. There was absolutely no reason for that disgustingly degrading conversation between the bus conductor and the young lady. The matter could have been settled amicably without either party hauling invective at the other with gusto. Well, I sighed deeply, THIS IS LAGOS! Occurrences like this are a norm, everyone engages in such inhumane acts from time to time. From the mother returning home from school with her children, to the mechanic that works on the subway, the banker that rides the bus from the Island to the legal practitioner that heads home in his range rover sport……………………………… Lagos is synonymous to such incidents!

I read a book about two years ago whose major character was the “lady disdain”. She had no scruples and could talk to anybody however she deemed fit. Nemesis caught up with her shortly, she gravely insulted the king and was sentenced to be burnt at the stake. On the day of her execution, she maintained she was innocent and lamented injustice. She never insulted the king! Alas, the king had disguised as a sexton whom she had tremendously despised.

You might just be in the same bus with your interviewer, what then happens if you put up a show like the unladylike lady and get to the your interview place to discover that the adept spectator on the bus is the HR manager meant to employ you! You will of a surety feel as though you were being burnt at the stake.

People will certainly get on your last nerve but be weary in great intemperance because you will never know who is watching. It is a small world after all!

“Boundless intemperance in nature is a tyranny; it hath been the untimely emptying of the happy throne and the fall of many kings” these were said by Mac Duff in William Shakespeare’s book,” Mac Beth”. If you love your kingly position, you should heed them! If hypothetically, Lagos is Equivalent to Rome, then we can rephrase this saying to be- “you do not always have to behave like the Romans when you are in Rome”