Childhood: My dread of guns

My gun history

I have had my day with the gun, handled one a few times and had a few pointed at me with menace. When I handled a gun, I was a child, hardly 9 and fascinated by the experience.

The time the guns were pointed at me, armed robbers had entered my home and we were under threat of getting shot before the armed robber in charge - they had ranks - dissuaded his troop because we had cooperated in their enterprise to willingly give up our things, albeit under duress.

We have lived to tell the tale, 24 years on.

Rayfield, a field of dreams

However, back to the childhood experience, we lived in Rayfield, a suburb of Jos and an almost relic of its colonial past where the Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria had its headquarters.

Our house was an imposing white bungalow with 4 bedrooms and acreage of land where cattle grazed tended by nomadic tribes, with 13 mango trees producing different varieties, a fig tree, a guava tree, a cashew tree, a thorny lemon tree and much else, it is was almost too idyllic for reality.

The other family

Down the back dirt road beyond the tennis courts where my dad played and the golf course, a sport my dad never took up though he had the kit was another family where I went to play sometimes.

The kids were much older though when one of them arrived in my class we all laughed at his rather poor grasp of English; it just never occurred to us that anyone could speak English that badly.

The eldest was imposing, tall, handsome and smart, when we played family games, I always chose him as my father, the feelings are almost too silly to recount but that was how it was.

Guns for play

I never asked what might have happened to their mother but their father was a lawyer and he had a gun, it was a rifle, probably just over a yard long and it was loaded with pellet shot.

There was a big tree in front of their house and just at about the 6 feet height, the tree trunk branched out into a perfect Y and that is where we placed a tin can for target practice.

He sat on the steps in front of the house about 20 yards from the tree and held the gun for us because it was a bit heavy to keep steady; we then found the range and pulled the trigger. Having taken a few instructions from him, we were quite good at hitting the tin.

The memory that lingered

The last time I remember handling the gun is like a picture in my mind that has never faded and I do have some pictures like that from my distant childhood that prominently gets replayed like I am going through an old family album.

Everything was set as we usually did and there were more people at the house because there was a party and this was probably part of the entertainment, the fascination with guns.

It was my turn to shoot and confidently, I sought the target and pulled the trigger hitting the tin again but something was wrong with that arrangement especially with the adult supervision we supposedly had and the many children around the house.

My vivid mind with the sometimes dangerous ability to process more than is necessary rolled back the time to just before I pulled the trigger; there was a girl standing just below the tin; a poor aim, a distraction or some scatter shot and it would have been an entirely different story.

No toy at all

My world stopped and the burden of a fate unimaginable consumed my 9-year old mind, I never touched a real gun ever since even when I had opportunity and legal access to handle one.

The girl I remember quite well, she contacted me a few years ago after she read one of my other childhood recollections, I am glad she did and I doubt she realised how our lives could have been changed too radically to contemplate.

In my experience, I learnt enough about guns to know they are not toys no matter how much we like to toy with them.

Nigeria: Gone is the Jos I knew

Memories long gone

One of the dangers of sweet memories is to allow them to dictate your view of contemporary events. However, it is a lesson in life to appreciate fully and embrace the good memories on which to build expectations of the future whilst leaving behind those memories that shackle you to experiences you would rather not relive.

In fact, Demi Moore expresses [1] that sentiment better by saying, “The key is to hold onto the love you had and what you gained and don't get attached to what you lost.”

A time of adventure

The news of riots [2] in the city of Jos, Nigeria fills me with regrets of paradise lost, some of my formative and excitingly adventurous years were lived in the suburb of Rayfield, Jos.

This was a place where I could read a Famous Five [3] or Secret Seven [4] adventure and think this is possible in my backyard, then go out to have fun on my bicycle with friends.

I cannot understand what has become of Jos such that in the past decade there has been these religious riots pitting Muslims against Christians [5].

Jos was idyllic, temperate, it had in the 1970s a good proportion of Caucasians and it was probably the most anglicised city in Nigeria.

The then head of state, General Yakubu Gowon was from that area and I remember the many times he visited his hometown that we went out to the railway crossing at Bukuru waving Nigerian flags as he passed by.

The divisions emerge

Indeed, I could not have known that much about rivalries between the tribes, but there were songs that depicted some of the animosity between them, the Birom, the Angas, the Jukun and the Tiv as inhabitants of the then Benue-Plateau State.

There were the Hausa and the Fulani but they represented the union language of the region just as Muslims and Christians seemed to co-exist without malice, rancour or schism.

One can only lament the way that political forces that have no consideration and concern for their followers have exploited subtle differences between the people to foment savagery in rioting, unnecessary mob violence and killing.

The power brokers whose selfish interests are to fill their pockets and those of their sycophantic minions have been unconscionable to the extreme; as far as they are concerned, hell can reign in Jos if they cannot hold the reins of power, lives are dispensable as collateral damage to meet their needs but none of them would be found culpable for the heinous crimes that have been committed.

No concept of being Nigerian

One is also saddened that after 48 years of independence and after 94 years of the existence of the entity called Nigeria, the concept of Nigerian-ness has not taken root in the psyche of the people.

Tribal and religious affiliations still matter to many and they become the fodder for barbarian plunder, such that the riots brought on by one political party not winning a local election has been reduced to religious fighting between Christians and Muslims.

It begs the question why Nigerians cannot break free from primitive identities of tribal and religious affiliation to that which is borne out by progressive ideas, vigorous discourse, healthy debate and civilised engagement.

Is there a broad-based coalition?

The impression was that a Christian party had won in what was a predominantly Muslim area – the concept of a Christian or Muslim party must be abhorrent enough, but could there have been a case where the supposedly predominantly Muslim area did think that the other candidate was better?

This question would seem to elevate the standard of Nigerian politics to a level never attained before, but the possibility is there.

For self-appointed leaders of ill-repute to portend that they know the wishes of the voters long before they have cast their ballots would be to make the idea of democratic determination a moot point and completely irrelevant; this needs to change.

Seeking redress with civility

Ideally, there should be ways and means of challenging results of an election in a civil manner and processes put in place to verify to the satisfaction of all concerned if the tally of votes represents the clear wishes of the people.

That level of civility is unfortunately not in the capabilities of our political leaders and the ability to trust the results of our electoral processes has never really been in the gift and abilities of our electoral officials.

The opportunity to seek appropriate redress is ditched in favour of appealing to our basest instincts, excite the latent savage and feed the dormant beast, let the usually restrained animal lose on the innocent and defenceless and carnage reigns without bringing us anywhere near a solution.

The ungodly pretending to be religious

Hundreds of people killed in country where if God were to have a nap He would not find a nanosecond to blink for the number of times He is presumably called upon is amazing – people had replaced their prayer beads, rosaries, bibles and Korans with machetes and impliments that inflict grievous bodily harm and death.

The shocking thing is some leader would find ayah or verse to justify these actions in the name of God and all that is good.

I submit that the perpetrators are hardly Godly people by any stretch of the imagination, they believe they call on a deity and are in the service of some higher being but this is no religion, it is a just a horde of animals seeking a label of sorts and the greater shame it is of Nigerians to be portrayed in such bad light.

As for the childhood memories I have of Jos, they have become memories only - almost never to be the reality for kids in Jos today or in the near future – it is a sorry and sordid state of affairs, unfortunately.

Source

[1] Demi Moore at UK premiere of Flawless – Telegraph

[2] Nigerian city counts its dead after days of Christian-Muslim riots | World news | The Guardian

[3] The Famous Five (series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] The Secret Seven - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigerian city tense after riots

Childhood: The fruits of a chicken napping dog

Fruits of many trees

When we finally moved to Jos and settled in the suburb of Rayfield, we had a full house with Unculu (my paternal uncle) and other relations of my father that included his niece and kid sister.

Our colonial bungalow was set in grounds that included an orchard of mango trees, a lemon tree, a fig tree, a cashew tree, a few orange trees and lots of grazing ground for cattle.

There was a separate garage for the car and a block of rooms set aside about a minute’s walk from the main building which was the boy’s quarters – a colonial definition of apartments for servants.

Blood of thieves

Besides the help we had from our relations we had a maid servant who despite her work was offered the opportunity of schooling and a gardener who doubled as a watchman of sorts.

This however did not stop the watchman of being robbed once, where some of his family possessions were stolen and on one occasion a thief tried to gain entry to our house, broke and window pane and cut himself badly.

All the blood and the trail of blood from the scene of the crime was quite unsettling for me as a child, in fact, it was just as scary as when we found a bat squeaking in the kitchen sometime before.

Et tu Bruté?

However, one of the memories that stuck with me was of our very first dog, Brutus, a very nice cheerful dog that seemed to have a taste for chickens in the neighbourhood. One day when I was away at school, the people came round, chased the dog into the bushes which were downhill from the house some 500 metres away and ran a spear through it, as I was told.

Rumour has it; it ended up in some soup pots, the killers probably doing well to retrieve their chickens by eating the dog that ate their chickens.

It was something of a traumatic experience and it took a while before we got another dog that I named Scot after the dog Scot in the Janet and John books we read at school.

Beheading the chicken

Thankfully, Scot did not have a taste for chickens at all, considering we had quite a few chickens then on the grounds.

Every once in a while we chased a chicken to exhaustion for a meal, none of that frozen chicken stuff and I had been taught how to clamp the wings under one foot and have the feet under another foot, grab at the head, holding it up to reveal the neck and cut without necessarily decapitating the bird.

Once, I did cut the head completely off and did not let all the blood out or allow for the last breath, lifted my feet and got half chased by a headless chicken before it expired – thankfully, it did, because there was no way I would have tried to catch it after what had happened to it.

Imagine if the chicken ended up like Mike the headless chicken [Source: Mike the Headless Chicken - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia] which survived for 23 months, sometimes; the weirdest people do the craziest things and find a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

More memories of a child

Of memories long ago

Over a year ago, I wrote a blog about my memories of childhood in Rayfield, Jos in the 1970s. I also talked about my primary school, Corona School, Shamrock House in Bukuru, in many ways, I did have a somewhat privileged early education and that would be the topic of blog in the not too distant future.

It was heartening to read a comment placed on that blog today by someone who had been to the same school at a time when Nigeria was changing again and how after a personal tragedy, he still remembers those times fondly and has given me such great pleasure reading about his experiences.

Some comments should not be hidden from view, but given a good airing when the human interest aspects are self-evident.

I have taken the liberty to edit the comments, but laid it out as a story told in the intent, voice and context of the writer, my comments are in parenthesis.

Armstrong’s memories

Greetings to you, Mr. Akin, [I get called that a lot when I prefer either to be addressed by my first name alone and if my name is to be prefixed with a title, then the name is Akintayo – Just me being pedantic as usual.]

It’s nice to know that you were also a student in Corona School, Jos, Plateau State.

I was very impressed in how you described your past memories and past experiences of our school and very happy to know that I am not the only one who recalls these wonderful events that had happened to our lives.

I said this because, I was there also, but you were there ahead of me. My time was during President Shagari’s tenure in the early 80s, but he was overthrown by a coup d’états led by Major General Babangida [In fact, it was General Muhammadu Buhari] and that’s when the military rule begun until we left Nigeria.

[There was a military rule when I was at that school too, then the Head of State was General Yakubu Gowon, I was at the school between 1972 and 1975, President Shagari’s tenure ran from 1979 to 1983.]

Of course who could forget that wonderful places? There was the Club House just nearby where Mohammed Isa and I used to hang out and watch the British, German, Dutch and some Filipinos like me, playing Snooker or Darts whilst they were drinking or holding a bottle of Rock.

And yes one of my favorite place was the swimming pool, just a walking distance away. I remember it well; Mohammed and I, together with other expatriate friends used to swim there once a month or if there was other free time.

And just a stone’s throw away, there was the multi-purpose theatre hall and guess what? When it was time for the annual festival of all nationalities in Jos, where we performed our folk dance and songs, I was one of the chosen dancers to represent my country, at first I felt weird and uneasy, but I did it just fine!

Actually, I was a break dancer then; my moves were, hand spin and back spin, but not anymore now.

I was also one of the varsity players for the basketball team, though I'm not that tall our head coach, a lady, in fact, saw my talent and skills and put me in as a centre forward. Of course we won.

Everyone was very happy in the school that day, they were shouting ARMSTRONG! ARMSTRONG!! Of course I was very happy and proud to bring glory to our school.

One event that I can't really forget was when our Headmistress accused me about something I did not do at all. She put it in writing and put it on record.

Yes, I have a school record not only as a student and varsity player, but also had a record of chasing girls.

Was it my fault for being popular and with good looks?

Actually she was very strict Mrs. Opara (British National), but she overlooked the situation and jumped into a one-sided conclusion, she didn’t even bother to ask me of what really happened.

Probably because one of them was her niece, anyway it was no big deal for me.

My father was an Engineer and he worked as a Maintenance Manager at Microwave Associates at 26 Bukuru bye-pass. Sad to say my parents died in Nigeria, they were victims in a car accident on the way to Kano Airport. [I am so sorry about this.]

Thanks for the opportunity of sharing my happy memories and sad moment on your site, I hope you like it and find it interesting.

[Amstrong, I liked it very much and despite all that happened, you seem to have become a fine gentleman with fond memories; such is life and wherever you find yourself, live it well.

Thank you very much for sharing your memories.]

Rayfield, Jos - Memories of a child

Maps of places once seen

I wrote about my mobile phone a few days ago and alluded to Microsoft Virtual Earth which I could access from my smartphone device.

So, I panned the maps down to Nigeria and began to zoom in on Jos which when I lived there as a kid was in the old Benue-Plateau State - gone are the days when we just had 12 states in Nigeria as opposed to the situation now where every homestead is almost a national entity, a state would not suffice.

I would not be surprised if Nigerians found a way of creating 200 states just to be about to cater for the quest for power and the opportunity to waste oil money on personal enrichment rather that the socio-economic development of the governmental areas.

Rayfield green fields

As I zoomed in on Jos, I saw all the name places of towns that brought memories of childhood flooding back. I did not see the suburb of Rayfield which was just beyond the old airport; most of the residential area there was taken up by chieftains of the Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria (ATMN) where my father worked as Deputy Chief Accountant.

The fields around Rayfield were quite idyllic; a golf course with the tee-off point in front of the club house on a hill, strangely, about 20 metres down from the tee-off point was a steep descent that ran into a main road which cut the fairway and greens off from clubhouse.

Now, I wonder how sometimes we rode the paths through the golf course without the fear of getting hit by wayward golf balls. My father however, never played golf, the bag and balls simply rotten away in the garage; he was more a tennis player, the game of people in their late twenties.

Riding into the barren clay (kaolin ) outback was always a pleasure, we rode our bikes until we got to some functioning mine plant where the miners give us some souvenir tin ore to take back home, once we came across a menacing group of men who must have been up to no good as they snarled and gnarled at 2 little boys who were just exploring the world around them - that was quite scary.

Even little Rayfield had its scandals, we, the kids, all hear of these things, a sudden pregnancy and the poor girl suddenly disappears, but I also remember getting stung by bees twice, my right ear lobe still has the strange indent created as a result of the sting.

Corona School, Bukuru

Beyond Rayfield, there was Bukuru where the company clubhouse was as well as my school, a land-rover ride each morning from the front of the office - two things I remember were a fierce and feared teacher, Mrs. Obole and the school menace, who lived not too far from us, the nursery school even had a nursery rhyme to his honour which went.

Simon Cox, is a fox, put him in a leather box.

Many a time, some kids would have loved to have him put in a leather box and the lid sealed like Davy Jones' locker; once he tied a boy with a leather belt to a post and had others pelt the poor lad with water bombs made to some Origami design.

At that time Yakubu Gowon was the Head of State and he frequently had President Eyadema visit from Togo, and since he was from a village near Langtang, each time we knew he was in town we were taken to the railway crossing just before entering Bukuru where we waved patriotically; flags of Nigeria, the children - black, white and coloured, the same enthusiasm; I probably was one of the very few kids not born in Nigeria in my class.

We were always acknowledged, sometimes with a slow down and an appreciative wave from the host and his guest.

When the bloody coup of the 13th of February 1976 took place, I was preparing for secondary school in the South of Nigeria, one of the chief instigators was Lt. Colonel Buka Suka Dimka ; I was in school with his son.

Other towns of interest

Vom was the home of the veterinary centre (National Veterinary Research Institute), I remember I had to write a rambling essay about our visit to the centre, I never liked writing essays or letters, I hope I have improved with age.

Move on to Barakin-Ladi and another club house where our parents might not have been aware of the emerging studies on parental guidance for children's entertainment.

I saw my first horror film in that club house, some nice parent had arranged this cinema event for all the kids of senior ATMN staff and we were made to watch this blood and gore film - a millstone and lake awaits that kind parent, we were definitely marked for life after that.

Other names of places though my memory fails me of important army schools, the home town of our gardener and the seething but quiet animosity between the Birom and the Angas - Gindiri, Pankshin, Shendam, Damshin and Lafia extending into the Tiv lands were once quite familiar.

One local musician did not endear himself with these words in the more generally spoken Hausa language.

Birom de Angas, ku deina sha giya mus.

Translating to the Biroms and Angas should desist from getting drunk on alcohol. Oh! what days of yore. The local tipple was called Burukutu - brewed from millet which was abundant in that area, other recipes use sorghum.