Aproko Unlimited

Baba Bose 

Baba Bose had just collected his pension

He was feeling very high and cool

He would often be seen at Madam T’s beer parlor, drinking himself stupor even as he argued with the boys about politics, football and women.  

And then his visits became every evening

And then he began to stay very late that he would be one of the last set of customers

And then he stayed later and closed with Madam T

Later, we realized he would be there every morning too

Soon, he began to help madam T set up in the mornings

He started running errands as much as washing plates

He would even attend to customers in the evenings while Madam T ordered him around

Rumors began to spread, that Baba Bose had been jazzed

I didn’t believe until…

I saw Baba Bose coming back from a nearby market

He had gone on an errand for Madam T to buy ewedu

What bothered me most wasn’t just about him running the errand but the attitude with which he ran the errand

Baba Bose proudly held the ewedu in his hand, brandishing it like it was the Olympic torch as he hastily rushed back to the shop to deliver this great assignment   

Only then was I convinced - he had lost his manhood to a Benin woman.

Benin woman?! I thought, ‘flesh and blood cannot deliver him from this one’

Baba Bose turned from a customer to a slave

All his pension money gone (or all transferred…)

Eventually, Madam T disappeared; leaving Baba Bose broke and tattered

He was so broke that I heard he was harassing little children for N10 and N5

I didn’t believe, until…

One day, He stopped me on the way, asking me to give him N20 but I wasn’t with change but I gave him something - a promise

I gave him a promise that I would give him the N20, later

Well, we never saw Madam T again

But we heard a few rumors.

One was that ‘she had lost it (mad. Were. onyeaara) and another that ‘she was dead’

After a few years of no evidence of ma’am T’s existence, her beer parlor things were auctioned.

Ewedu: a kind of vegetable majorly eaten by the Yoruba people of Nigeria

Benin: is the capital of Edo state, Nigeria