There is also Achike who refused to pay his rent because the budget

had not been signed.

“Achike, “What has the okrika you are selling at the bus stop got to do

with the budget? Alhaji Sirika said, eyes blazing. What has that got to

do with my money?”

Stout with a prominent distension in the middle, Achike said “My

business is tied to government spending. It is intricate Alhaji, you will

not understand.”

When reminded that the vice president in his capacity as acting

president had signed the budget, he said, “It is a ruse. We have no

acting president. The man was told to coordinate activities of

government till Baba returns. He himself has said that he speaks with

the president every day. What that implies is that he still takes

instructions from the president. It means we have two presidents

which is wrong constitutionally and in that light the budget he signed is

null and void! When the budget excuse did not work Achike said “My

brothers in the north have been given quit notice. Nobody knows what

will happen in two months time.”

I used to think Mr Cosmas was weird until three months after I moved

in I began to notice activity in one of the hitherto locked rooms on the

ground floor. The returnee occupant is Mr Kingsley. He does not talk to

anyone, he never says or responds to greetings, he never flushes the

toilet after use and he prefers to take his bath in the bathroom

reserved for peeing. He is a heavily bearded towering man with dark

piercing eyes and bushy eyebrows with some strands curling out towards the sky. His torso is matted with hair and when he moves he

seems to do so on tiptoe. The children call him The Undertaker. He

converses only in parables or in quotes and always acknowledges the

quoted, often leaving listeners confused. During compound meetings he

will be seen stroking his beard and looking disinterested while

neighbors raged about one problem or the other. Then someone will say

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to him “Mr Kingsley, so what do you say? How can we be expected to

contribute money to repair the transformer when we pay NEPA bills

every month?

He will pretend not to hear and will keep everyone waiting for about a

minute then he will say “When injustice becomes law, resistance

becomes duty. Thomas Jefferson.”

Then someone will say “Mr Kingsley you have come again. We are asking

what we should do and you are quoting a dead oyinbo man for us.”

He will again stroke his beard for another minute then say “Whatever

we do will seem insignificant but it is important that we do it. Mahatma

Ghandi.”

It is when he is angry that he produces his best quotes. Usually he

quotes an African statesman. One Sunday afternoon, Mr Zubi‟s boys

were playing police and thief and barged on his door constantly while he

was having a siesta. When he could not bear it any longer, he went and

knocked on their door and said to Mr Zubi “Mister, warn your children.

If they continue to hit my door like that, „the come, will turn to become

– Mbadiwe.”

Living directly opposite Mr Kingsley‟s is the born again Spinster Sister

Esther. In her late thirties and once beautiful, Sister Esther, always

thoroughly covered in maxi skirts and long-sleeve blouses and scarves

competed for airtime with the muezzin every morning with her loud

hailer admonishing all the souls on the street to “repent, or spend

eternity in hell fire”. Before hitting the street she would first put her mouth through Mr Cosmas‟ window and say “Brother! The Lord has

given you another chance by sparing your life till this morning. Turn

away from blasphemy and heresy and call upon the one true God.

Repent!” Then she would gather her skirt and jump the gutter and

make sure that the first words that rent the air before the muezzin‟s

speakers cracked would be “repent!”

“She‟s in love with The Undertaker” Irikefe once told me. He is the one

that shines her congo”. “Don‟t be silly Irikefe” I said. “Don‟t worry bros

Freke. You will see for yourself.”

Now to Lukman the one eyed barber. You would think that after five

years of blindness in one eye that he would be used to his lot by now.

But he continued to take offence when looked at any longer than he

considered necessary. “I am like this because I was fighting for your

rights!” He always said. The story is that he was gorged by a policeman

who was fighting off a mob that isolated and beat him up during a

“peaceful” protest against the APC government for the ill treatment

received in the area. “Because we support the PDP and our councilor is

an Igbo man we don‟t have light and our street is not tarred.” One day,

Willy-Willy went to his shop and after staring at him for five minutes

said “Bro Lukman, does your missing eye give you a headache?” Lukman

planted his knuckles firmly on his head and he ran to tell his elder

brother Castro.

Castro is eighteen and always spoiling for a fight since he finished

secondary school and could not pass his matriculation exams. He

stormed into Lukman‟s shop and started bouncing his willowy frame

about and rolling his fists. Lukman, twenty-five, with a lifetime on the

streets easily overpowered Castro. When they got separated, Castro

grabbed a clipper with which he smashed a mirror and then ran out into

the afternoon. Afterwards I convinced Lukman to buy an eye patch and

turn his disability into a style. The first time he wore it and regarded himself in the mirror, his face opened into a broad smile and he said “as

the American‟s would say, this is badass!”

He quickly grew a wicked moustache and bought a montera hat and

pointed out to everyone how much he now resembled Jack Sparrow in

the Pirates of the Caribbean. Kids now compare every bad guy in movies

with Lukman.

It does not seem like the introduction of my neighbors will ever end if

I continued. There are too many of them and each of them brings

something different. You will have to meet them as my story moves

along. But I must tell you about one more person.

The first thing my father said to me as I was leaving for Lagos was to

stay away from girls if I wanted to make it in life. But each time I

looked at Maya I knew I was going to disobey my father. I wonder why

old people continue to spew out this trite wisdom, as if congress

between a man and a woman was created in 2017. She is the second of

three sisters and the dearest to her mother, Mama Tobi, whom I will

tell you about another time. She is seventeen, only four years my

junior, graceful as a peacock, with a voice as soft as melting honey. One

day her mother said to her “Maya, I saw you looking at that new

calabar boy and your eyes were dimming like somebody that drank

ogogoro for the first time. Those people are dogs! Be warned!” When

she told me, all I said to her was that “it‟s a myth.” And her reply was

“I know”.