By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The old Lagos of the yellow molue bus is the Lagos of my adoration.
It’s not in my constitution to make so much mouth in celebration of modern gizmos such as yellow or blue line or the BRT or whatever.
I am an impossible Luddite, a proud apostle of Ned Lud, the irrepressible early 19th century worker who destroyed machinery and sundry technologies in factories because he believed they would take away the jobs of workers.
It breaks my heart no end that Lagos is fast losing its beans to all the fickle never-lasting appendages of the modern day.
What can be more heartrending than the clear and present danger that the choice spots that used to give Lagos her onions are no longer there?
For instance, the first-ever hotel I lodged in can no longer be seen even with the aid of a microscope or even binoculars.
I’m talking of no less an edifice than Bobby Benson Hotel, the unbeatable Hotel Bobby that stood ever so majestically between Fadeyi and Onipanu bus-stops, on the opposite side of Igbobi Orthopaedic Hospital.
Gone with the structure is the legendary Caban Bamboo nightclub where, according to Obi Nwakanma in his book Christopher Okigbo: Thirsting For Sunlight a young Wole Soyinka manufactured the words “If you like marry taxi driver” and Bobby Benson ended up releasing the monster hit, “Taxi Driver.”
Very prosaic characters often dismiss me as a “poor poet,” but they ought to know that there’s aristocracy in my poverty, otherwise I could not have been lodging in posh hotels like Hotel Bobby!
It is cool by me to stroll out of Hotel Bobby and jump into a molue.
The class of it all is that I did not need to spend my own cash to get booked into the swanky hotel.
I earned my room in Hotel Bobby as a member of the cast of the play Madam Tinubu written by the now deceased playwright Akinwunmi Isola.
I played the part of the leader of the eyo masquerade gang.
We came from the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, to stage the play at the National Theatre and the University of Lagos.
After the performances at the National Theatre I left my costumes at my Hotel Bobby lodging and paid a visit to my uncle, then living in Lawanson, Surulere.
I had a groovy time with my uncle such that I completely forgot about Hotel Bobby and even the play I had come to Lagos to perform.
It was only at the very last minute that I rushed to the University of Lagos Arts Theatre venue to make the call-time.
Then the truth hit me that my costumes were still holed up in Hotel Bobby!
There was panic amongst the cast and crew – but I remained cool.
The director, Femi Euba, was saying that the start of the play could not be delayed, and I ought to be the first man on stage leading the eyo masqueraders!
A couple of lecturers whom I shall not name here were threatening Ogun fire and Shango brimstone.
One said he would report me to our Head of Department, Prof Wole Soyinka, and I quickly replied that I would make the first move by reporting myself to Soyinka’s sister, Folabo, who was with us there as a member of the cast!
While the bickering lasted I managed to sneak away with a member of the cast, Akin, one of my eyo troupers, to a nearby watering-hole.
The twist in the tail was that cast and crew would be thinking I had gone to Hotel Bobby to fetch the costumes.
Now that we were out of sight, we could hear the soft-spoken Director Femi Euba saying: “Where is Maximus?”
Others were screaming: “Where is Borojah?”
In short, Borojah resounded all over the place like a cracked ikwokirikwo record!
In theatre, there is the dictum that the show must go on no matter what – even on the pain of death.
So the play had to take place without me participating.
Back at Ife, during rehearsals, I led the eyo masqueraders to flog Ahmed Yerima who acted the part of Mr. Vikiansony.
Yerima would always complain to the director about the actual flogging when we ought to be simulating.
I would defend the action of my team by explaining that we were practicing “Theatre of Cruelty” as developed by the French dramatist, Antonin Artaud.
Our plan to give Ahmed Yerima the final flogging in Lagos was thwarted by my forgetting the costumes at Hotel Bobby!
I am quite sure that Prof Ahmed Yerima is still thanking his stars that I did not appear on stage that night to unleash the ultimate flogging of him in our administration of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty!
The play eventually kicked off with a depleted masquerade team watching the elegant Madam Tinubu, played by Morenike Bodunde, claiming Eko as all her own.
Madam Tinubu was challenged by her unstoppable antagonist to stop claiming Eko because she came to Lagos from Abeokuta – through Badagry!
It was such a captivating performance that all my sins of costumes-disappearance and personal disappearance were totally forgotten.
The only thing that was not forgotten was a new nickname: Maximum Trouble!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry.
