NEVER START A FIRE THE FLAME OF WHICH YOU CANNOT QUENCH

This will most probably be the most off-road of my write-ups; off-road in the sense that it will take me along paths I seldom tread. I will be forced to use words which, in my real self, I would never have used; except, and very rarely, for educational purposes. There are certain words which I have never been convenient with; words which, even if I were left in complete solitary where no humans can reach, I would still not have used. If I have my way, I would have kept the event to myself, but I just cannot. Writing, for me, is a passion and, much more than that, an obligation. Therefore, whenever there is a conception upon the mind it must be let out, else, it will be a passion unfulfilled. Every conception on the mind is like a burden, and like any other kind of burdens, the bearer alone suffers from the weight. So as not to fall victim of a known outcome therefore, I write. I will not hold anything back even at the risk of sounding unusual, as any omission will be a distortion of facts.

I had my NYSC orientation in 2008 at Iyana-Ipaja Lagos; I was mobilized with the second stream of the Batch A corp. members of that year. That day, we had gone out for the routine early morning exercise and, afterwards, returned to the hostel for the day’s chores and to get ready for other activities in view; it was a tiresome outing. For me, the whole morning exercise was boring. Not about the physical trainings - anyone who spent one week in the gates of Command Secondary School, Jos at the time I was there would know that the NYSC exercise is just a child’s play compared to the drills we got in the school; but sitting outside under the sun all morning taking lectures most of which I had no interest in really do wear one’s mind off. Having had so boring a day, we decided to get the mind a little bit elated.

Though I have never been a ‘Hip-hop’ person all through my life, though I have always been trying my best to see that nonsensical music do not get the better of me, though I keep a strong filter for sieving contents of odd music before it gets settled upon my mind, some stubborn ones still find a way of penetrating into the core parts of my mind taking advantage of my sincere love for music. Even when I tune my mind completely off the frequencies producing them, there are still some emanating from street radios, buses and other public gatherings that my antenna finds irresistible. There are some amongst the lot, though, that I really love, those when weighed against my conscience I find hearable and singable, those whose level of perversion is light or considered reasonable and harmless. That day, the operator in the OBS (Orientation Broadcasting Service) as usual was playing some jamz, and he played one such song that I love.

“Photocopy – ko easy! You can never be like me, it is my identity…Teni n’teni…Takasa n’ta’tan……Apa lara, Igunpa ni iyekan……………”

In response to the song, in order for us to amuse ourselves, Alhaji, a good friend I met at the NYSC Camp who incidentally was from the same school I graduated from, and I started dancing comic dance to the lyrics of the music. Soon, some other guys on the first floor of the three-storey Camp building joined in taking it more seriously than us. My favourite song ended and I went inside the hostel to do one or two things, meanwhile, music kept streaming out of the OBS. By the time I came out again to the balcony of the first floor, it was filled with dancers, and Alhaji was in their midst. The spirit continued spreading, and soon, everyone on all the other floors was out to either join in the dance or feed their eyes.

Again the operator played.

“Lori’le – o di gonbe………E so fun Sisi Ologe koya faya…………………..!”

The people shouted. The dance continued. The operator kept changing the music with increasing tempo. The dance continued.

I looked up at the space in between the building - it has a big quadrangle at the centre, I looked up to see balloons flying in the air giving the inhabitants of Iyana-Ipaja and passers-by a false sense of Independence Anniversary celebration. The balloons all of the same colours but different sizes flying in the space within – a thousand balloon in the midst thereof. But these were no ordinary balloons.

Permit me to dwell a bit more on these balloons. These young men, having preconceived upon the tablets of their minds to achieve certain aims along the line of sexual immorality before leaving their houses to the Camp trusting that they will meet their female counterparts who also would have preconceived in similitude – like a case of a man going on the quest for suicide who, at the point of crossing the road to drown in the river at the other side, was knocked down dead midway by an oncoming vehicle: even though the means of death was different from what he set out for, the ultimate was achieved nonetheless – came with some of these items. Also, leveraging on the ‘generosity’ of the various health organizations present on the orientation camp, who freely distribute these items, which, I suppose, was invented for the purpose of birth control but which, overtime, has turned into an instrument for encouraging promiscuity, to desiring persons. For the too-curious reader who claims he doesn’t get what I am talking about at this point, not wanting to completely deviate from my ideals with respect to decent usage of words anyday anytime, I can only suggest you find out what modnoc is all about. 

(I can see someone eagerly typing out the letters M-O-D-N-O-C on Google; but that is none of my business! Curiosity is known to be capable of killing any kind of cat!)  

Armed with such supply of these items, it was not surprising to see a quantum of strange balloons flying in the air. The significance of this act is that these young men have thrown sanity in the air, that whatever piece of sanity in their possession had been thrown to the winds. And what is now left is lesser than the alertness of the beast of the fields. What was left was a null!

The beat goes on…………

‘Gongo Aso…kutuke awo….anywhere I dey….Aji sebi Oyo la nri, Oyo o sebi Baba enikan.......!’

And the usual shout that greets every change came up again, this time reaching to the high heavens. Now, everyone stood outside the veranda on all floors - saints and demons united as one; some watching with great interest, some dancing like wild beasts. But the jumping and dancing seem not to be to this particular beat coming from the OBS, there was some other music from some other place…..but from where?

If your inner eyes were half as keen as mine, you would have seen Satan and his host ascended from the pits of hell and took the centre stage; and he, Satan, sat at the Turntable and began to ‘cook’ such beat as to make men mad being a Pro in the art of music himself; and his Sergeant-at-arms holding a pair of cymbal one on each hand and hitting them against one another producing an equally dangerous sound – I could almost swear I saw at least one of the corp. members moving to this particular beat; and the other lesser demons clapping their hands together while moving round and round in circles as we see in some spiritual centres when demon is supposedly being cast out of a person. This other music was the one dictating the moves even though it was not obvious to the ordinary eyes.

In consonance with the new lease of spirit, the OBS operator played the next line:

‘Omo na mental craze! Start to dey craze…kolomental….ooohh..Oh..oh oh oh oh oh…Kolomenta!’

Having thrown sanity to the winds earlier, this song helped to seal the deal. The spirit of insanity had been let loose on the children of men. The noise went completely overboard; the young men jumping and shaking their heads on this side, ladies dancing and screaming on the other side, the devil and his host laughing hilariously for a job well done at the centre. I, on the first floor standing a few steps from the main activities on the boys’ side, was watching the drama with a mixture of confusion and interest - who would have thought that a little fire could generate this much smoke? This was not my intention, this could never have been my making. God save the king!

Then the whole thing took another form, a form sharply different from what a normal party should be. Seizing the advantage of the moment, the young men, who have been on the camp for a little over one week or so, started complaining of having been deprived of their right to ‘pleasures’ for so long, and started shouting:

“We want s***************************!!!”

To which the ladies on the other side (the shameless ones amongst them) responded excitedly by turning their bums toward this side, shaking it vigorously as if to say to them ‘Say that to the bum bum’. This they did several times responding to the continuous call by the young men for the unimaginable, they have no shame. Then the boys took the request many steps farther, as they say, give the devil an inch, he will take a mile. They requested that the ladies pull off their dresses. By then, the centre of main activities had shifted to the upper storey of the building, and it was from there these weird acts and strange requests were coming from. 

I later heard that one of the boys actually went inside the hostel, pulled off his clothes and came back to the veranda with nothing on save a bucket turned upside-down over his head to conceal his identity, a bucket to conceal his folly. So, it was on this basis that the boys on this side were requesting that the ladies make bold to do likewise while displaying their now nude comrade as a trophy of some sort. Now, the spirit of nudity has been unleashed on the sons of men, and they were trying to infect the daughters of Abraham with it. I was on the first floor so I didn’t see this display, but I could judge from the outburst and excitement of the ladies on the other side while pointing up towards the boys’ hostel that it actually happened. The ladies, though, truly speaking, never obliged to this request, at least, as far as I knew; but they were indulgent of it, and were quite obviously excited by it. 

And the beat goes on and on.

Just at the moment when fire and brimstone was about to be sent down from above to consume the children of men like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, Mr. Anthony Ani, the NYSC State coordinator at the time, who is the current Director of Mobilization (I saw him granting an interview on Channels television not too long), having first gone into the OBS studio located on the ground floor of the building to stop the music, came into the centre of the quadrangle - the same point where the host of hell pitched its tent, looked up towards the source of the madness, and shouted passionately:

“What is wrong with you?! Are you all children?!!” 

In the next instance, everyone disappeared from the verandas into their hostels and the place became as silent as the Grave – not even a bird was left to sing. Nothing was left save Mr. Ani, the spectacle on his face and the echo of his voice. And that was how everyone was saved from imminent destruction. I felt so relieved that all came to an end.

Had it not been for the intervention of Mr. Ani, that event would probably have made headlines the next day. It would have degenerated into something else. It would have been reported that some young men at the Lagos Camp jumped off from storey buildings and took to the street naked. And that before they could achieve their aims, fire came down from heaven and devoured them all. And the face of a certain boy named Aji, and his friend Alhaji would have made it to the front cover of all bestselling newspapers around the country being the main culprits.

My Name would have been mentioned and my face as shown in the picture below would have made cover pages even though we started the dance without any evil intention, we started it just for personal use and it was meant to ease off the stress of the day. This, therefore, brings me back to the title of this bizarre episode: NEVER START A FIRE THE FLAME OF WHICH YOU CANNOT QUENCH. Ours grew into an inferno and would have gone worst if that word of caution hadn't come in time.

Let this word of caution guide your acts and attitude wherever you find yourself.