For about four days, Okon has been behaving very strangely. He had been spending too much time with himself in his room. When he emerged in the living area, he wore a funereal and gloomy look. Stranger still is the fact that his entire head was covered by a flour sack which he tied grimly around the neck. When snooper asked him what the matter was, Okon would merely hiss only to return to his glum schedule.
Snooper at first thought that this was Okon’s way of mourning the demise of the traditional ruler of his ancestral village. But no one can be sure of the mad Calabar boy’s latest stunt. By the fifth day, it was clear that the handshake was going beyond the elbow. It may well be that the rogue had contacted gonorrhea again. Snooper decided to do something about it.
While he was fast asleep, snooper tiptoed into the room and yanked off the nonsense from his head. The sight shook and shocked us to the marrow. Okon’s head was completely shaven but for the thick shrub around the forehead. A barber’s clipper was entangled in the shrub as if it had been knitted in.
“Okon what’s going on here?” I shouted trying not to laugh.
“Oga, don’t mind that yeye Yoruba barber. I say make him give me Hogan Basseycut, he come destroy my hair”.
“What happened?” I asked with suppressed relish.
“The yeye man from Ogbomosho with his zebra crossing he come put clipper for my head. Fiam, fiam, he come race through the thing like caterpillar. I say you this were man you well so?”
“What did he say?”
“Him dey speak one kind language I know understand. Dem say na Hausa-Yoruba, him dey say locosin, locosin. So I say to hell with locosin I want my hair back!!”
“So what happened?” snooper demanded.
“Him oga come come, him come they scream, this one na Farioro, this one na Farioro, na only Hausa malam he dey shave. I come look mirror, I no like myself at all. I come give am one blow for him cheek he come spray me with the goro he dey eat, I come give am another he come fall, I come dey beat everybody for the place. Na him your friend, Buhari Jogbojogbo and dem mad OPC come arrive. Na him I come jump from window with dem clipper for my head.”
“So, why have you not removed the clipper?” I asked laughing wildly.
“Ha oga, he come use Yoruba juju to tie the thing for my head, I no fit at all. The thing wey dey pain me be say I get date with one UNILAG chick. If he come see me like this, I go faint”.
At this point, snooper moved closer and yanked the clipper off the knotted tangle of Okon’s shrubby hair with the rogue screaming and yelling like a mad chimpanzee.
“Now, you will take the clipper back to the owner before Jogbojogbo comes after you again”, snooper ordered.
“Oga, dat one I no fit. You wan make the Ogbomosho man finish me? As I dey run, I dey hear am they scream after me, ankali dankare, ankali dankare fa. Oga wetin be ankali dankare?”
“Beware of dogs”, snooper replied smiling.
“Chei oga, this yeye Yoruba people. God go punish dem!!”
The Nation
