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By Patrick Naagbanton
Port Harcourt which derived its name from Lewis Vernon Harcourt (1863-1922), the British Politician and administrator, is a town of ports (small, medium and large ones). Another name for Port Harcourt is Pitakwa. Different people have their different names for the city. On Friday, twenty-seventh December, two thousand and thirteen, two days after the christian carnival of Christmas, I set sail again. I navigated from the Nembe/Bonny/Bille port on the southern end of the town, to Twon Brass located on the south of Bayelsa State, and in the Brass Local Government Area (LGA) of the state. I had made up my mind to travel with the large wooden canoes (local ferry). I had no particular endpoint in mind. Nonetheless, I wanted to sail to Twon –Brass (also called Twon) and later Akassa and Sangana communities still southwards, which are at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean.
By ten forty a.m. on that Friday, I had arrived at the port. At the entrance was the bold announcement, “Ministry of Transport-Nembe/Bonny/Bille Terminal, P.H (abbreviation for Port Harcourt.)” The weather was mild, but the strange heat of the harmattan season was irritating. At the port’s gate, officials of the Rivers State Transport Ministry were collecting tollgate fees from vehicles entering or leaving the port and thereafter, issued them with a small receipt. I observed the exercise for few minutes. I didn’t know that a female official was observing me too. “Hello, my dear, this one you are watching us do you want to do Christmas for us?” she said smiling warmly. I was infested with her beautiful, sweet smiles.
“No, thank you, my sister. I just enjoy your work, but Christmas is over. I thought those of us on foot pay the fee too.” I replied her.
She and other two male officials laughed. “You are really a very funny man” she said again.
A truck overloaded with planks of wood was coming from the port and she had to collect her money. She was rather interested in the money than me. I walked away. The port is one of the busiest in Pitakwa.
Shanty buildings overshadowed both sides of the gate and other parts of the port. Few meters away was a bar with some bizarre phrasing, “De Physical Blessed Blue Bar, Stanford Bridge – In God we trust.” Beside it, on same right was a small space where the Nigerian navy used sandbags to build a four- corner- shape barricade. Two naval officers with guns sat in, one held his riffle in between his legs. While, one was dipping a disused toothbrush in a liquid in a small Peak Milk container with fuel and scrubbing the gun’s “upper receiver” part of his Fusil Automatique Legar(FAL) generally called FN, a self-loading slaying Belgian rifle, the other officer was standing up and watching him and the environs. The navy’s sandbags were bounded by a fairly big block house painted in Nigerian police flag (blue-yellow-green). On the doorpost of the police building were the painted words, “The Nigerian Police Nembe Post.” In front of the building, were two long iron poles and on one hung the police flag and another Nigerian flag.
Not up to three meters away from the police post were three stalls on a line on the left. All locked with padlocks and both side and roofs covered with low quality, corroded zinc. The space between the shops and the police post provided some kind of a passage to the wharf. Twelve young men whose faces looked as if hawks had beaten them with its hard toe nails- had different sizes of scars. Their eyes were dreadfully red. They held different sizes of Indian hemp wrapped in white papers, and one end burning like bush fire. They stuck their mouths at different ends not burning and inhaled deeply. The environment looked weird with bad faces of the boys and bad ordour of the hallucinatory weeds. They were moved back and forth along the path like hunted fellows. Some of them after inhaling clouds of the smoke coughed deeply like a pneumoconiosis patient. According to Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia, “pneumoconiosis is a disease of the lungs due to inhalation of dust, characterized by inflammation, coughing and fibrosis.”
I didn’t walk away from the place where the dense clouds of Indian hemp smoke hovered like restive honey bees. One of the fierce-looking boys walked up to me and said, “Officer, market, market”. He meant whether I wanted to buy Indian hemp. While, holding the burning Indian hemp with his left hand to his mouth and smoke from it overshadowed us, he stretched his right hand to have a hand shake with me. His hand was as rough and strong like a broken concrete stone. “O boy, another time” I said.
“Okayooo, nothing for your loyal boy?” meaning any money for him? “No, not now” I said again. Helpless and poor market women especially, who had to travel around the wharf area or its neighborhoods around early mornings or late in the evenings have horrifying stories of attacks, rape and monies, properties snatched from them at gunpoint or raped by persons suspected to be those Indian hemp smokers and sellers. As I was walking to the end of the Indian hemp path I saw a pregnant woman. She carried a big load on her head with her six children walking with her. The poor woman looked stressed. She was coming from one of the communities in the creeks.
“Madam, welcome” I said to her.
“Thank you, God bless you” she responded and stood looking at my face.
“Please, don’t pass here”, pointing at the Indian hemp path, I said, she understood what I implied.“Are these fine kids with you?” I asked her. The clothes on them were dirty and worn out, and they appeared hungry and malnourished. I carried the youngest amongst them and led them through another path, a “safer” one which led to the front of the police building. I dipped my right hand into my bag and drew out three packets of “onion cracker” biscuits with the sign, “made in China” and two big bottles of eva table water and two soft drinks I had bought for my lunch and dinner during the voyage. The woman and her kids were full of praises for me. I advised her not to have any child again after the one in her womb, arguing that terrible and hard times are coming to us as Nigerians and children need care and love. She blamed her husband who is a bricklayer for the many kids. She said she wanted just three kids, but her husband kept on giving her more, claiming that God takes care of children.
The woman, a petty trader stays in a one-room apartment in one remote area of Diobu, one of the poor neighborhoods on the west of Port Harcourt. She wanted to walk to the road, join a bus to a point closer to her house and walk down. It was such a pitiable arrangement. I called a taxi cab and paid him one thousand naira (about six dollars) to drop them in their house in Diobu.
I walked back to the harbour after the taxi cab left, but not through the Indian hemp smokers’ haven. I was closer to the point where I would walk through to where the boat was anchored – some few meters away, I saw a single room building like the police building, but painted with grey. A large banner was placed on a side of the building, and written on it “Nembe waterfront street party. Venue; Nembe water front. Time: 7.00pm-till the end of time.Date: 29/12/2013”. Away from the building was an isolated, “quiet” corner with a clean vehicle parked. The right and left front doors of the vehicle were opened. The car radio was playing some kind of music. The music wasn’t the usual Nigerian hip-hop, reggae, gospel, Islamic, afro-beat or others. The music was that of drumming, whistling and occasional shouts like that of a maimed owl, the “fearful” sharp-eyed, nightly bird called Eiye in Yoruba. It excited some feelings in me. I stood and listened carefully. In front of the car were three plastic chairs and a wooden table with a bottle of “Jack Daniel Old No. 7 brand,” the sharp-tasting American Whiskey on it. There were two empty bottles of the drink on the ground. Three young men there were drinking and smoking cigarettes, not Indian hemp, and sweating profusely. One of them was standing up, wearing red beret and black trousers and shaking his chest like one suffering from a quivering ailment. The other two persons were quivering too in their seats, one of them having a yellow scarf around his neck and also wearing a white long sleeve shirt. I was quick to identify them as, “Fine boys, Bucket men or Alora (members of the Buccaneers Association of Nigeria (BAN) also called Sealord Association of Nigeria)”.
I am very familiar with the sally songs (Buccaneers music) and other confraternities and cults in Nigeria.
“This Sally is dedicated to all dead buccaneers …”/May their souls rest in perfect peace…/If you have never been a Sealord before you die you will never be happy/ oh! My brother, don’t worry if it happy you die in this confraternity we shall meet again…/I want to be a Lord before I die…/My Bible tells me so that/ We shall Sail to the treasure land/ I want to be a Lord before I die.” That was the song. At the beginning or end of each stanza, the singer was saying something scornful about the Pyrate and Vikings confraternities, describing them as Korofo. Korofo is a Yoruba word of the South-Western Nigeria. The Yoruba use it to describe somebody who is weak without courage or a useless person. Korofo has gained currency in Pidgin English, Nigeria’s corrupt version of English language.
The word means same in Yoruba or Pidgin English. I like the song and started imitating them, by shaking my chest too like them. The one standing up dancing saw me and ran towards me and exclaimed, “Taa!. “Who are you? Are you a living dead (also meaning a member of the Buccaneers)?” “No” I replied. “I am a friend, not a foe, but just carried away by our sally”. I said. The man, a final year student in one of the schools in the state smiled and said I have the courage of a Fine Boy. I laughed and he led me by hands to two others, saying that they should give me some drinks. The other two were no longer students, but still remained committed to the orgainsation. They graduated from universities few years ago. I was well received and given drinks and cigarette. I swallowed a little drop of their drink, but not cigarette. In Port Harcourt the cigarette smoke is called gas turbine.
They were very friendly, though surprised how I understood all their “secret codes” and other groups. We cracked some unique Port Harcourt jokes. One of them said he was familiar with my name and had read my articles published by Sahara Reporters, the New York – based, but Nigeria focused online news agency. They suggested that I should try and be closer to them, and that they like my courage and that one day I can be a living dead like them. And I can be a good Sea Crier (Buccaneer’s information officer). The Buccaneers like other groups have very violent initiation processes. One of the Buccaneer’s guiding philosophies is “blood for blood” (revenge).
Twenty years after the formation of the Pyrates Confraternity (PC) aka- National Association of Seadogs (NAS), the BAN was born. Wole Soyinka, then student at the then University College, Ibadan, and now in Oyo State code-named “Captain Blood” and six other students, who called themselves the “Original Seven” or “Magnificent Seven”, found the PC in 1952. The group claimed it was founded to fight against social ills, and not as a violent gang. Wole Soyinka later turned out to be a leading world literary figure, whose pen and voice had shaped the landscape.
Bolaji Carew was an active member of the Pyrates Confraternity and his code-name was “Rica Ricardo.” It is the tradition of the group for its members to adopt code-names. Rica Ricardo spearheaded a “mutiny” with other thirty members of the group. The Pyrate leadership swiftly expelled them, and tagged the “rebellious” Rica Ricardo (Bolaji Carew) as “late Ahoy Rica Ricardo”. In the Pyratical world, Carew is dead, but in the buccaneer world, he is alive, hale and hearty, and is the Supreme Eye (Boss) and spiritual head of the Buccaneer Confraternity. Carew was the provost of the Lagos State College of Education. The Pyrate continues to blame Carew and his Buccaneers for the subsequent multiplicity of bloodthirsty and violent pseudo-confraternities and gangs on campuses and in the streets.
However, the Association of Air lords also called Supreme Eiye Confraternity was earlier founded by seven students at same University of Ibadan which the (Eiye) call “Araba (Mother Nest)”. But the controversy around the Bolaji Carew episode overshadowed the existence of the Eiye. Secrecy is one of the fundamental principles of the confraternity. Its members are called, “Haba Krier” and they wear blue beret. Beyond these three (Pyrate, Buccaneer and Eiye) there are many other groups operating inside and outside the school environment.
I left the “Fine Boys” at the wharf and headed to a point where the boat I would travel with was anchored. There was another navy checkpoint by the side. They were under a small zinc roof, raised up with four planks. Two naval officers were at the small naval checkpoint house. One stood up, while one sat on a plastic table chairs and placed his two legs on a plastic table in front of him with his gun in between his legs. He was deep asleep, snoring deeply with a tiny tooth pick in his mouth. Perhaps, he had just finished a heavy meal of garri (one of Nigeria’s staple foods high in carbohydrate) and soup and that induced him to sleep off. His colleague standing up with his rifle by his side was merely touching bags and passengers either entering or leaving the nearby jetty. That was not proper checking.
I stood for sometime to watch the naval post and the surroundings. I was still standing there when a dark, fat lady, marched to the naval house, panting, “Officer, somebody threatens me and I want you to deal with this idiot.” She pointed her hefty fingers at a smallish young man who wore a dirty white t-shirt, and on it, written, “Have a Safe Day.” The sleeping naval officer woke up due to the lady’s hoarse voice. The man ran to the navy men, noticing the lady had gone there to report him. “See the idiot” she barked again like a mad dog.
The naval officer didn’t ask any question or try to find out what happened. He marched his right leg back like a karate fighter, and kicked the man’s legs. He fell down. He ordered him to remain on the ground. I felt bad. I couldn’t pretend not to see that. I walked up to the naval officer and advised him to find out what happened before taking any action. The man looked at me with some caution. He didn’t know who I was – when others around kept quiet and I had the courage to do that. The officer obeyed me and asked about what happened. The brutalized young man narrated how he struggled to bring out the woman’s luggage and one of the children from a speed boat. The woman just arrived from her journey in the creeks.
To be continued.
Naagbanton lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.
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