Hello, good people of God..
It's been quite a while, yeah? There’s been so many things to update.
I promised last year here to give updates on how the trip back home went and... o boy.. let's just dive right in.
First, just want to say a prayer for the soul of Pa Remi Nwokoroku. His loss was such a great blow to the family. I know you’re in heaven looking down on us, and here’s hoping you’re resting peacefully, sir.
We travelled back to Nigeria in December. As I knew all along, it turned out to be a mixed bag of different emotions. Arriving at MMA2 to the irritation and foolishness that go hand in hand with Nigerian airport staff and procedures.. Good thing Chioma had come earlier on in December and given me heads up on what to expect. I just boned and informed the idiots at customs and immigration who were looking to extort whatever they could, that I was here for a funeral and was recently bereaved. To their credit, this straightforward explanation ignited some sort of sympathy switch and I was waved through without much hassle.
It was amazing to see the fam again. Bruh… that's one thing I really missed, they all came to pick me and my goodness!! You never really know how much you’ve missed these guys till you’re physically hugging and backslapping them again.
Anyway…long story short. Everything you’ve heard me and every other regular Nigerian moaning about the economy is not only true but far worse than what was just imagined. Its insane. Everything had literally tripled in price.
I went directly to Ugo’s house and the nostalgia of being in Badore again hit me hard…see my hood na…
All the kids were all delighted to see their fave uncle Okey and it was great to see my little ones shining bright and growing up so quick. God bless them. I was glad we had spent good money to get them some very nice presents.
Spent a couple of days in Lagos and then had to travel back to the Villa to get the burial sorted.
Hmmm due to the crazy flight prices from Lagos to Owerri, I had booked to fly with Arik to PH first and then go by road to Owerri. Was a smooth flight and I got to PH airport (first time actually flying from there) on time. I hadn’t planned on any previous arrangements for anyone to pick me up so Immediately ditched my Brummie behaviour and activated Naija 2.0. Went straight to the airport car park and started hustling to get a cab to Owerri. As expected the prices were ridiculous (Airport taxi prices always are), so i asked around, found some other people going similar way and we split the cost
Some things never change. The amount of police and Army checkpoints on the road we encountered ehn!! Woo. It looked like some of these ones had been there for years and had just made the road their homes.. Our driver laughed and explained that the Army and Police guys like to think they’re peacekeepers..fighting Bakassi boys or some other rebel groups in the area.. which while not unreasonable, most certainly did not require them extorting money from drivers at every single checkpoint which were just meters from each other.
Seeing Lolo was such a thrill. No matter at what age, You’re never ever too old to be your Mother’s child…I’ve missed my mama and it was sooo good to see her again.
The burial plans were just a couple of days away from when we arrived so there was lots to do and plan for. I went to Mbaise a couple of times before and honestly was amazed at the progress made on the house we had been trying to complete since my Father in Law passed. Thank God for some of Chioma’s uncles (notably Uncle John) who really put in time, money and effort to ensure the building reached a very reasonable stage in time for the burial proceedings… (a big part of his late wishes was to be laid in state inside his own house and I was grateful that we were at least able to fulfill that for him).
As per tradition and being the good son-in-law, I activated a few local contacts and was able to buy this massive cow which we had planned for (even though the price was beyond initial assumptions). It was a real stunner
. Honestly, considering all that my late FIL did for me, it was the very least I could do to show my love and respect. Turns out, it was very timely as well as there were the usual shenanigans about provision of meat that always accompany these sorts of traditional events.
Not to put too fine a point to it, but prior to this time,there had been some family drama about burial plans co-ordination, financial contributions and other issues (as to be expected). The good thing was that the entire Nwokoroku family was still very united in the determination to give my FIL the proper send off he deserved and it turned out so.
On the 4th Jan, we laid Pa Remigius to rest. All the usual drama aside, we managed to pull off a very decent burial ceremony and even though I got a bit heated up with the stupid Ambulance idiots who messed up the conveyance of the body from the Mortuary earlier in the morning, (Imagine, we had paid for a Hummer ambulance to come early and pick the body, and these clowns didn’t show up at all, later claiming the vehicle broke down somewhere. We had to hire another standby one for part of the way and use a personal vehicle the rest of the way), everything else went very well, if i say so myself.
The Nwokoroku family are a well loved and respected one throughout Mbaise and it showed in the amount of goodwill and love on the day. My people from Umuawuka also turned up for us. Lolo, as usual, had been phenomenal in her arrangements and coordination of events from that end.
It was great to be back home in Umuawuka. Big props to my whole family, who were able to carve out time to travel back and ensure the Ibemeres were fully represented. (God bless Ugo for all her efforts towards the success of the occasion).
Despite the poverty and economic wahala,like I said, for myself, there’s always that love for home and that crazy “Motherland tug” which makes sure you never forget where you’re from. It was just sad to see so many folks hustling to survive and trying their best to eke out whatever sort of life they could.
Anyway, I spent time with them in the village, during which I attended my cousin Boy’s trad wedding in Anambra. He’s based in Mexico and got married to his long time sweetheart who has been patient in getting to this sage with him. It was a good event. I saw my cousins who I’d not met for a long time and had fun.
Seeing as flight prices from Owerri were stupidly exorbitant during this season, I gave myself sense and booked my return flight from Uyo which was much cheaper. It also afforded me the opportunity to see my second favourite town and visit old friends, Saint, Ekemini, Precious, Lizzy, Prince and the rest of my former crew. I loved it and it was a great side trip.
Well that was until the usual Naija wahala almost ruined it when my flight back was inexplicably cancelled on the same day by Ibom Air. I was just preparing to go to the airport, next thing I received a call from them (at least they even tried to call) telling me my flight was cancelled. No explanations, no compensation, no empathy… just a bored sounding lady telling me the flight has been cancelled.
Okay..you’ve cancelled flight, what next? Even the madam had no idea of what to do.
I had to go down to the airport only to meet a whole crowd of irritated passengers who were stuck in the same situation as myself. Some had it worse as they had already booked connecting flights from Lagos to different destinations.
Thank God, I even had people I could still stay with in Uyo. After giving them a righteous, if pointless, piece of my mind, I went back home. Luckily the flight was later re-scheduled to the next day and I was able to fly back to Lagos.
Ahhh, my lovely Naija. How can such a great country be in such a position?
Nothing has changed regarding the economic outlook. The hopeless government of the day is still chock full of useless, self absorbed, incompetent politicians who’re focused on self enrichment. People are suffering, the economy is in free fall, foodstuff prices are insanely high, transport cost…my God!
I honestly can’t deal.
Chioma, Ify and Myself got an AirBnB somewhere close to the airport, stayed there a couple of days and flew back to our saner home in the UK.
Funny enough, and in stark contrast to the Ibom Air fiasco, our connecting flight with Rwanda Air was also affected by a lengthy delay. However, in this case, we were fully comped in a beautiful hotel in Kigali, (breakfast, hotel suite and transport to and fro the airport)..SMH
All in all, a really mixed bag of emotions.I suspect my love for Nigeria will never fully vanish but it’s getting difficult day by day to keep it alive and for now, I’ll just stick to loving it from afar.
God bless us all.
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