December 10, 1998 [Ibadan]

Richard woke up scared, panting as though he had just finished a hundred metres dash. His shirt was soaked wet. The part of the bed where he laid was also soaked. For a few moments, he wasn’t sure where he was. The dream, if he could call it that, was both scary and confusing, at the same time. Many would call it a nightmare, but he knew this was more than just a bad dream. It was a message, a vision of some sorts but he wasn’t quite sure how he should deal with it.

He looked around and saw he was in his room at school, thankfully. He could still make out the furniture in the room, even in the darkness. It was easy. The room was sparsely furnished. The reading table and chair, the wardrobe and the bed, from which he just woke, were all the furniture he needed. Unlike the other students in his dorm who had furniture and electronic gadgets that could be considered respectable in many middle and upper income circles, Richard’s room paled in comparison, although many of them knew he came from a home that could afford to provide him with all the gadgets he needed. Why he picked this Spartan existence baffled a lot of them.

But Richard was pleased with his lifestyle. It was a way of life he chose out of knowledge & out of deep need. Not the type of need that drives people these days, accursed with a fast food mentality, moving from one crusade ground to another, looking for the next spiritual celebrity and hoping for a microwaved breakthrough, but discontinuing their pursuit when the breakthrough is seemingly deferred. His was a need borne out of the poverty of the soul.

Before he became born again, his life had been about the next shag. He was such an impassioned ‘player’. All he thought about was where the next shag was going to come from. And he shagged everything. Fat, thin, short, tall…any available shag would do. But after a while he began to feel as though his life’s essence was being drained away with every shag. Ecstasy soon gave way to guilt and bliss was replaced with emptiness. It was at that point he concluded he needed something deeper.  He realized sex couldn’t feel the void he felt in his heart. It was at that point in his life that he met God and started his own spiritual odyssey.

And now, alone in his room, confused and afraid at the same time, he wondered what link, if any, his antecedents had with the dream he just had. He was still trying to make sense of the dream when it occurred to him that he needed to quickly write it down so as not to lose any of the vital details although he doubted if he could ever forget any part of that dream- it seemed so real!

He was in a dark wet and dingy tunnel, filled with all kinds of despicable things, both living and dead. He wondered how he had gotten into the tunnel in the first place. He felt dirty and grimaced at the level of decadence in the tunnel. He groped for the wall, hoping to steady himself against the tide of ‘death’ flowing at his feet, pushing him far back into the tunnel, against his will and away from the light he could see at the other end of the tunnel. But he quickly removed his hand from the wall when his fingers touched something cold and slimy. He knew he had to get out fast. The smell oozing from the walls was threatening to choke him to death and he knew if he didn’t run out quickly enough he could be swept away far into the tunnel by the rampaging waters below.

As he tried to run towards the light, he felt ‘hands’ pulling at him and drawing him down towards the waters. These were not human hands. They felt more like snakes and an octopus’ appendages. They came at him from all directions, pulling him down with a strength that was inhuman. Just as he was about to give up and succumb to them, he felt a surge of strength from within himself and he broke free from their shackles in a manner not dissimilar from what he had seen Clark Kent do on so many occasions  when fettered with the strongest of all restraints.

He began to run towards the light again. He was free. He could almost see the end of the tunnel now. The light looked wonderful and beckoned to him to keep running. But just as he was about to reach the light he began to feel a different kind of sensation. This was not as cold and aggressive as the appendages that threatened to pull him down just a few moments ago. This sensation was soft, warm and sensual. It felt like a woman’s bosom and he could feel it all around him. He was still running but he began to slow down. Before long, his run dawdled into a walk until he stopped altogether. He didn’t feel a need to run towards the light anymore. What he was feeling wasn’t bad at all. In fact he liked it. All of a sudden, the filth and dinginess of the tunnel didn’t matter anymore. Before he knew what was happening, he was back at the point where he started from and now the sensual feelings had stopped, replaced by the more aggressive and dangerous appendages. They dragged him down and just as the tide of death was about to wash him into oblivion, he woke up.

The only interpretation that made sense to him was that the dream represented the struggles he would face in his spiritual passage. The tunnel represents life; the snake- like appendages are the battles the devil will throw  at him to keep him down enough for the other worries of the world, represented by the tide of death, to wash him far away from his chosen path. But it was the sensual sensation that bothered him. He had a feeling it meant that he was going to have struggles with the opposite sex and fail. But how could this be?

His last shag had been 3 years ago, just before he surrendered his life to Jesus. And since then he had stayed on the strait and narrow path. He had not even thought about having sex all this while. This dream would have made sense if he was still having struggles with sex. But he wasn’t. He remembered some sister in his fellowship saying she respected the fact that he could be amongst so many ladies in his department [the choreography department] in the fellowship and not feel tempted. To him it was not a big deal.

He then concluded that the dream must be a clever machination of the devil designed to distract him and sow some fear and doubts in his mind. The Lord had kept him thus far and he was confident that He who had begun a good work in him would perfect it.

He knelt down beside his bed and said a short prayer before going back to bed unbeknownst to him that the dream would come to haunt him again, two years later.

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Yeah Right!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Dogs_Go_to_Heaven

I have known a few dogs in my life and am sure not all of them are in heaven now or will make it to heaven when they die. Some will. But many won’t.

Let me play God for a few minutes. Let’s assume I get to decide where some of the dogs I will be profiling below will end up.

Ringo

This dog, in my opinion, is the best pet I ever kept. He was my first dog. He was friendly, loyal and smart but not smart enough to avoid eating other’s people’s fish. This love for fish eventually led to his demise. But apart from that Ringo was a cool companion; a good friend, great footballball player and a favorite amongst female dogs. He was a playa.  Everyone loved him, except Iya Bose, my neighbor, whose fish he always ate without permission.

If I were God, Ringo would definitely make it to heaven. His good deeds far outweigh his shenanigans.

Jango

This is the dog my mother bought for me when Ringo ran away after eating Iya Bose’s fish. Jango was a good for nothing dog. He was dirty, lazy, unfriendly and dumb & it didn’t help that Jango had very huge shoes to fill [Ringo’s]. Jango was one of those dogs that were never satisfied until they ate from the gutter, even if they just got served a gourmet dog meal by their owners. As if that was not bad enough, Jango was never satisfied with ‘eating out’. He always brought home ‘takeaway’- his specialty was dead rats. Yuk!

Jango died from food poisoning. No one mourned him. He had left no pawprints on the sands of time. He also died a virgin.

Jango will definitely not make it to my heaven. Don’t want any dog dragging dead rats on my streets of gold. Naaaaaaaaah!

Bruno

Crazy dog he was. Had respect for no one; terrorized both old and young. I knew his days were numbered when he started going after people’s poultry animals. He had a thing for fully grown hens. Something about their matured meat must have appealed to his canine cravings. When Alfa Baba, one of the most respected Alfas in the area announced that his hen was missing one morning, I had a feeling Bruno was behind it and knew that his long-throat had finally caught up with him.

You see, Alfa Baba was one of those men that one found difficult to define. He was a devout Muslim but one could mistake him for a spiritualist or herbalist by the way he went about his business. You could see him drying out dead rats one day while buying agama lizards from the neighborhood kids for his many concoctions the next.

When Bruno stopped eating altogether and started losing weight drastically, we knew the end, for him, was near. We didn’t bother to find out what was happening to him or who was responsible for it. We knew.

Bruno will most definitely not make it to my heaven. I can’t trust him with all those swans swimming in the river that flows within the city of God. 

Jack & Husky

We got this pair a week apart from each other.

Jack came first.

She was a gift from one of my Mum’s friends. She was cute, hairy and looked more like a terrier than a mongrel that she was. Husky we got from one of my friends whose dog had just had a litter.

My Mum wasn’t enthused with the idea of having two dogs in the house at the same time but she couldn’t bear to tell us to return Husky when we brought him home. Husky was a very lovely puppy. He grew up to be a fine dog too.

The two were good together. For Husky, it was love at first sight. He loved her from the first day he set eyes on her till the last day she ran out of his life, our lives. I loved her too. You would too. Jack was a cute dog. Friendly and cuddly but too clever and full of cunning. When she did anything wrong, she approached you with her head bowed, her tail tucked between her legs, wagging, slightly, pleadingly and eyes half shut as if waiting for you to whack her on the head but knowing that you wouldn’t . When she reaches where you are, she crouches on the floor and turns her under side up for you to stroke. If you did that, she knew she was forgiven. And it always worked. I really couldn’t bear to hurt her.

But Jack took advantage of my affections for her. She always did the wrong things. Left the house without permission, ate food not meant for her, came back home late and had no regards for Husky’s feelings. Seeing Jack ‘glued’ with some neighborhood male dog became a regular sight. She was a nasty bitch. Slept with every male in the neighborhood. No class whatsoever!

One day she ran away with one of her mates and never came back. Husky was heart broken for a long time after that. He became a recluse. He stopped eating and lost a lot of weight. I thought he was going to die but he survived. He was a top dawg. He weathered the storm, found another lover and fathered several puppies afterwards.

My verdict:

Husky am sure is in heaven right now…Jack will definitely not make it in there.

Rover and her four Puppies

Rover is my landlady’s dog. I had written about Rover and her roverlettes in an earlier post. Things haven’t improved since then though. In fact, no one visits me at home these days. One of my wife’s friends who kept faith with us and kept visiting despite Rover’s constant harassments stopped visiting when she got bit by Rover some weeks back.

I know where Rover will end up. I will most likely send her there myself. Nuff said!

Snoop Dogg [The Dogfather]

This is the coolest dawg ever. He is the greatest rapper of all time, at least in my own humble opinion and what he just did with ‘sensual seduction’ is just off the hook. I will definitely need his cool rhymes in my heaven. He’s my dog!

Woof! Woof!! Woof!!!

Dan Foster [The Big Dawg]

I love this dude. He cracks me up a lot. He will most definitely make my heaven. With him there, I am sure some of the Redeemed who are into rap and R’N'B would get to hear some really cool funkified gospocentrics on the ‘Good Morning Heaven Show’, on Rose of Sharon FM, which is WIP by the way.

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Babatoonday!

 ‘Well, you are not quite there yet, but it’s a lot better than ‘Baba turn day”, he said politely, smiling, but seething on the inside.

‘Babatunde’.

Baba toon day! The white man repeated.

He shook his head; smiled again, and walked away, heading towards the makeshift lunch area.

How many times is he going to have to teach his Caucasian colleagues how to pronounce his name? ‘Babatunde’ cannot be that difficult to pronounce, he almost screamed out loud.

He had been tempted a few times to use his baptismal name, Matthew, whenever he was out of the country on official assignments but the name Babatunde meant more than an identification tag to him and he knew substituting it for another is like concealing a part of his identity and history. He could never do that.

He was born a few months after his grandfather passed, his father had told him. So naturally, as most Yorubas would in those days, Babatunde [My father has come back again], was his obvious ‘first choice’ name. To his father, however, naming him ‘Babatunde’ meant more than following a tradition. His father, Ajani, had been estranged from his grandfather from the age of 10, reconciling only a few years before Ba’tunde was born. The two were catching up on lost years when the old man succumbed to the inevitable. So when his [Ajani’s] wife, Ba’tunde’s mother, gave birth to a son shortly after his father died, he felt it was God’s way of returning his father to him, especially when the boy came out looking just like his father.

As he entered the luncheon area, his eyes quickly panned the room, searching for an unoccupied table where he could have his lunch in peace without having to introduce himself to anyone. He was not in the mood for chit chat and definitely not in the mood to hear his name ‘murdered’ again. He finally settled for a table in the far corner of the room, sat down and planted on his face the most unfriendly look he could manage, hoping to discourage anyone from sitting with him.

Lunch was over in 20mins. They were going in for the last training session and after that he was heading straight for the airport. He had missed his home. He couldn’t wait to get back. At least he would be spared the ordeal of having to teach people how to pronounce his name back in ‘gidi’.

Babatunde is a popular name back home. Whilst growing up, almost every Yoruba family had a Babatunde. But now things have changed though. The names his generation were given are so different from the names children have these days. Most of his friends, especially the Yoruba ones have archetypal Yoruba names such as Oluwasegun, Oluwaseyi, Olamide, Olaitan, Olanrewaju, Adeleke, Adeleye, Akin, Abiodun, Temitope etc. Back then, the practice was to have a prefix before your name and whatever that prefix is, was determined by a number of factors.

If you were from a royal family, you got the prefix ‘Ade’ [The Crown] before your name. If your ancestors were warriors, the prefix ‘Akin’ [Courage] preceded your name. Those who had wealth or wanted wealth or related almost everything with wealth used the prefix ‘Ola’ [wealth] while others, religious and otherwise,  used the prefix ‘Oluwa’ [My Lord] before their names.

Of course there were names that didn’t fall into this general classification. Some of his friends are from the ‘Ayan’ [Drummer] family; hence they have the prefix ‘Ayan’ before their names. Some others, depending on the deity their fathers worshipped, had as prefixes, the deity’s name.

These days however, the trend is towards the dramatic. His generation has turned theatrical and overtly expressive in naming their children. Most of the names he hears these days are not the ‘soki l’obe oge’ [short] names his father’s generation gave them. The names his generation bore left something for the imagination.

But the same cannot be said of the names his generation is giving their children. It is not uncommon these days to see children with names as long as or sometimes even longer than ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious‘, the longest word in the English Language.

Names like Oluwapamilerinayo [My God has caused me to laugh] always gets him thinking. How does one shorten such a name? Will the child be called ‘Pami’or ‘L’erin’?

And how does the future school teacher of such a child write his name in the Class Register?

The other day, he had gone for a colleague’s child christening, when he heard what, in his opinion, the most ridiculous of these new generation names. When the father of the child was asked by the officiating minister to read out the names of the child, the whole community of well wishers all shouted ‘Haba’, as if planned, when they heard the Child’s first name:

Oluwatobilobalatiyinatilatifiogofun [The Lord is mighty to be praised and glorified]. 

Sweet meaning and all but they all felt the guy had gone completely overboard with this new ‘name- must- be- inspired’ thingy. It was like giving one child the names of 5 children. The child could easily have been named Oluwatoyin, Oluwatobi, Oluwaloba, Oluwatoba, or Fogo. Their habas didn’t deter the man though. He went on to read out about 5 other sentence-names for the child. He was the child’s father and he had every right to name his child as he liked. For someone whose name is Tokunbo, B’atunde felt his colleague was being a bit too dramatic. Perhaps the dude was trying to compensate for his name which he wish he could drop since the name became a synonym for everything second hand.

Back in the days, Tokunbo was a cool name to have. It meant you had dual citizenship or that your parents once lived in Obodo Oyinbo. It sounded even cooler if you had one of those hyphenated surnames. A name like Tokunbo Omole-Richards was a babe magnet; a door opener. People immediately assumed you were from ‘old money’. He feels the hyphenated names have lost some of their appeal though, especially when, a few years ago, having hyphenated names became the in-thing, particularly amongst the emerging middle class whose life’s assignment is to do everything they see the upper class do.

Babatoonday! Babatoonday!! The voice startled him back to the present. It was his white friend screaming his name again. The training session was over and he realized he had spent it just thinking about names.

He wondered what his CEO would think if he knew that instead of listening and learning in class [for a training the firm had paid a lot of money on], he was busy thinking about names. He was sure the man would have quite a few names for him and he could bet they wouldn’t be printable.

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I have always been fascinated by names- humans’, animals’, events’, festivals’ and places’- all names generally.

In Africa, a premium is placed on names and because most believe that there is a strong link between a person’s name and their destiny, we tend to take our time and give serious thought to name-giving.

But we also give names based on what’s happening to us or around us at a particular moment in time. We do this to remind ourselves of that time or to serve as a reminder to coming generations of what happened in that period of our history.

Whilst I will forever be intrigued by people’s names and their meanings [when they have meanings], finding out the meanings and stories behind the names given to places had always been my desire.

I grew up in Makoko, the only surviving slum in the heart of Yaba, in Lagos Mainland Local Government Area. Makoko or Maktown, as some of us used to call it in our university days [in an attempt to disguise where we lived because we were ashamed of its slum and ‘ghetto’ status], got its name from two words- Omi [water], and Akoko (newboldia laevis) trees. We were told that when the first settlers got to Makoko, it was just a large expanse of swamp overgrown with Akoko trees. Omi & Akoko later morphed into Makoko and not even the inventiveness of some ‘arrogant’ college kids could change its history.

But I feel history beckons in almost every place. I feel there is a story to be told about the name of every community.

I would like to know the stories behind places such as Obalende [The king banished me to this place] in Lagos & Inalende [Fire consigned me to this place] in Ibadan. Whilst the meanings are straightforward, it is the stories behind them that, I think, would be really worth investigating.

Who knows the meaning of the names and the stories behind places like Oyingbo, Ebute Metta, Ikorodu, Mushin, Alaagomeji, Idi-oro, Ikeja, Oworonsoki, Ajangbadi, Akute, Ebin Pejo etc?

What about places like Ibadan, Abeokuta, Esa Oke, Osogbo, Onitsha, Jebba, Enugu, Dutse, Kebbi etc?

Where did you grow up?

Where are you from?

Do you know the meaning of the name of the place?

Is there a story behind the name?

Teach me… talk to me…

Please tell me a story.

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