THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE

          O P I N I O N

 THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE

By Gani Kayode Balogun

Sometimes in the mid 70s, there was a small dilemma in our household at Koilo Lane, Isalegangan on Lagos Island that begotten no easy answers. 

My father had completed our house at Oshodi Oko, now simply known as Oshodi, and he was totally committed to relocating that year. 

But the challenge was, I was just promoted to primary six at AnsarUd Deen Okepopo, I was the Senior Boy designate of the School, and I just won the Lagos City Council's primary school essay competition as well as leading the school debate team to victory.

Not only that, my  Wolimot (Quaranic School graduation) was a few weeks away, and my presence and that of other graduands were required on a daily basis except on weekends. 

So, to cut a long story short, The choice was between uprooting me to Oshodi to start afresh in a new school, or to find a way for me to finish school on the Island before relocating  after our First School Leaving Certificate Examination.

After a long soul searching, and ignoring both open and subtle blackmail by my mother, it was decided that I should stay on on the Island, with my mother's friend, Iya Wura at Odunfa , and come home to Oshodi on weekends.

Iya Wura was a sweet woman on the plumb side who was not very mobile. And like anybody who grew up on the Island will tell you, you don't need to cook anything to eat well on the island, as food vendors were available twenty  four hours. 

Yes, you heard right. At that point in time you can buy steaming bowl of rice with a soup so well cooked that you can feel the dryness in your mouth, at 3am in the morning. Not to forget fried yam and akara at shitta.

That was because at that time, Lagosians do not sleep. 

Luckily, my mother had given me an ample supply of gari, ground nuts and roasted meat so soaked in pepper and vegetable oil that what was meant to last a week lasted just a few days, and changed my palate for soaked gari with eran dindin forever. 

So, every Friday after school, I will pack my uniform and other dirty laundry, walked down from Odunfa to Ebutte Ero, join the Bolekaja going to Mafoluku via Mushin , and go home  to Oshodi. 

For the generation X guys, A Bolekaja, which roughly means 'come down and fight' was a Bedford lorry converted for human transport and goods by placing movable planks across three rows with each piece taking two rows, each backing each other. 

And the vehicle would pass through Iddo, Ebutte metta, moshalashi , idi oro Mushin through Ladipo to Apakun , then joined Oshodi Road through Afariogun, as there was no Apapa-Oshodi Expressway as of this point. 

Did I mention that I was eleven years old, living with an almost immobile guardian, and I moved from one of the most notorious places on the island, to go to one of the most notorious places on the Mainland, alone and unsupervised? 

Now, almost a half century later, How many of us, including me, will allow an eleven year old to go to Oshodi from Abule Egba without supervision, not to talk about Oshodi to Lagos Island, unsupervised? 

Our development has been phenomenonal,  also. We have built roads and bridges, we have toured the world, and we have achieved things that our grandparents cannot even comprehend, but, we have lost our innocence, and our common humanity. 

I don't have the answers, and I am not saying that that period was better. But our parents created a community, a network of foster parents and teachers whose word was law. But we cannot claim in good conscience that we did the same for our children. 

Now we have kid cultists in primary schools? 

We are in the middle of a drug epidemic, from North to South and East to West. These drugs are the driving force behind most criminal activities including banditry and cultisim. Kidnapping and mutilation for fetish purposes. 

We can blame it on modernity all we want, but it does not absolve us of blame as parents and role models. Children do not listen to us, they mimic what we do. And if they see us consuming without producing, living large without corresponding income, and seeing that we suffer no consequences for what we preach as wrong but we do anyway, they will copy that, and then more. 

The death of that boy in that private school should be a wake up call to us as parents and guardians that we are running out of safe spaces. An eleven year old of today is equivalent of a twenty year old of our day in terms of street smarts, knowledge about body functions and emphasis on being rich, or die trying. 

Like I stated earlier, I do not have the answers, except to do a mind reset.

 But like Captain Picard said in Star Trek: 

" We have made too many compromises already, too many retreats. The line must be drawn here! , this far! , no further! '

May the soul of Sylvester Onoromi rest in Peace. 

My10kobo.