BY REV FR GERALD NWAFOR
I was born in the 70s, so I may not speak eloquently about the 70s, but the 80s were as clear as noonday to me. One thing I remember clearly was the shopping for my mother’s kitchen at Ochanja market and Ose market. It was always a 10 Naira shopping on Saturdays with the list of items from my mother, who was a teacher in Nweje primary school. The largest on the list always was Garri for the week that will cost one Naira, and I will find a wheelbarrow pusher to help me get home, and I will pay him 15 Kobo or 20 Kobo, depending on the quantity of my items. The ten Naira note was pinkish red and had the head of Alvan Ikoku on it. On one Naira we had Herbert Macaulay, five Naira had Tafawa Balewa, and 20 Naira, which was the highest denomination then, had Murtala Muhammed. Although we did not see the money often. In the actual sense, I never saw 20 Naira until the military struck in 1983. Only the upper middle class would show up with 20 Naira once in a while. I remembered how a neighbor, Mr. Paul Modebe, gave us 50 kobo and a 25-liter gallon to go and get petrol (PMS) for him from a gas station (TOTAL) along Oguta Road by Modebe Avenue. When we returned with the full gallon and gave him his change back, he gave us a 5-kobo tip, and we were crazy with joy. We visited a provision store and got ourselves two bottles of Coke, a fish roll, and a goody-goody chocolate. There were complaints here and there, but no one was weeping and mooning the way we are now.
I did not pay a kobo throughout my elementary school; it was 100 percent free. I met three governors in my elementary school, two were military (Atomkpera and Ochefu) and one civilian, Jim Nwaobodo. We did help my mother write the payment voucher for her teachers. The highest paid teachers were level 10 step 8, and they received 120 Naria, and most of them drove a Beetle (Volkswagen) popularly known as BUS-WAGIN. The rich teacher drove a Peugeot 504, also known as PIJOT by all. There are other cars, but they were very insignificant. Mercedes-Benz is reserved for the super-rich, and Range Rover is for the opulent. But in all life was very affordable. We did have a bag of rice at home, which was saved for Sunday rituals only with fresh fish from Megafu Market.
We all walked to school, no school run. The sons and daughters of the politicians were in our classroom. Going to school overseas was not fancy. Getting admission into the university was solely by merit. The names of those who took the JAMB and their scores were published in the national newspaper. We knew the bright kids, and we knew the average ones. There was no mobile phone; it was the era of the landline, and people would go to Mr. Agbakoba’s house to receive calls. There were very few telephone owners around our neighborhood, so you had to be nice to the owners to get a space to answer a call. On my own level, I did not have a friend who has a phone line, and I do not think my parents had a phone friend. People traveled from Onitsha to Lagos to deliver a letter.
In 1982, my brother travelled to Lagos to give an uncle a letter about one of the sons who was living in the east. The family was tired of keeping the boy, and they wanted the father, who was now married to another woman from another tribe, to come and pick up his son since he had not been sending money, and the boy was misbehaving. The letter was drafted by my father and was given to William, who went to Lagos, delivered the message, and came back with Gala and Apple. It was memorable because for more than 6 months, people gathered around our house to listen to Williams share his Lagos travel experience. There was no kidnapper on the road. The transport fare was 5 Naira. The driver of the bus took care of Williams and made sure he got to his destination safe and sound. It was Ekene Dili Chukwu’s transport loading along the Oguta Road. The father of the boy came down a week later and promised to send 10 Naira monthly for the boy’s upkeep. Everyone was happy, and I asked my dad who would get the 10 Naira. I was thinking of the boy, but my father said it was the host family. Today, 10 Naira cannot even buy you PURE-WATER. I am not old, but I have lived long enough to say that I saw the glory days of Nigeria and the evil days we are living in now.
Finally, I do not compare the life I met, and the life I am living now, because I do not want to have a heart attack. Ia m grateful to God for the life he has given my family and me; we have our heads under the water, but we are breathing fine. The state of the nation now is not very good, but we are surviving on all fronts. I met a country where a plate of food was sold for 10 kobo in a big restaurant; today, the same plate of food is being sold for ten thousand naira. I do not want to say that it is the worst of the worst because I saw Buhari twice as president of Nigeria, and now I am seeing Tinubu. If we do not take time to stop this set of greedy men in 2027, I do not know what to say, but I can be worse than today.
Since 2015, when the APC government came to power in Nigeria, you are not sure what you will see when you wake up. The political space has been shrunk by the ruling party. Inflation is at its peak. Kidnapping and killings are a common thing on the way. The primary work of the government, security of life and property, has collapsed, and the government is behaving as if everything is normal. The situation I am seeing today is also the country we have built for our children, and history will judge everyone according to their contribution. Especially, those in power today are putting out lies to us that everything is fine just to save their seats in power and be relevant to the political powers that be. Our former first lady, Dame Patient, said, “God will see us.” I think she is correct. God will see us all, the good, the bad, and the ugly in our society today.
