By Muhammad Hashim Suleiman
Today, I was in the market to buy some stuff. My first shop of call was to a man whom for wanting to be politically correct, I’ll insist is still a Nigerian. This is man that I’ve been buying stuff from for the past decade. When I entered, his wife was in the shop, I’m familiar with her, for want of being politically correct, I’ll also assume she’s still a Nigerian. We exchanged banters. I said so since today the oga kpatakpata is in shop, the 2ic would have to sell things at a cheaper rate for me. How wrong was I?
As I settled for the stuff I went to buy, the haggling for the correct price started. Typical of Nigerian situation, all the things I wanted had added extra cost than the last time I visited the shop. As I turned to the wife to jokingly ask the oga to put mouth for the 2ic to reduce something for poor me, she went berserk. “Are you people not the owners of Nigeria?” I understood the ignorant mischief in her political undertones and I tried to deflect it. I jokingly said: “madam, make U no make kidnappers hear you o, if dem hear say na we own the country, dem go think say I get money o…” I regretted that too. She immediately went haywire. “No be wuna brothers be d kidnappers? Even if d kidnappers come, dem dey select people to kidnap and dem no dey kidnap their brothers like u.”
Deep in me, I wanted to school her but then another mind quickly whispered to me that not all “Nigerians” are teachable. The 2ic, that’s the husband and owner of the shop quickly spoke to her in their language and she stopped talking. I laughed and told him for the more than 10 years that I’ve been patronizing his shop, even though “my brothers adjacent to his shop are selling same stuff, I never knew his oga has been harbouring that kind of perception about people like me.” Sensing that he’s about to loss a customer of more than ten years, he quickly apologized and even reduce 200 naira out if the more than 15 000 naira I’ve spent in his shop.
I picked my stuff and left the shop only for me to see him following me and still apologizing. I told him not to worry that I think I’ll have to redress my steps and reassess my Nigerianess about patronizing him since kidnappers are “my brothers” and don’t kidnap “people like me.” I told him, no matter how a Nigerian I try to be, humans have elasticity point beyond which they can’t go.
