BY HON. FEMI KEHINDE
“Good morning, Sir”. It was an early morning greetings from my driver – Ife, coming back to work after a long weekend. Painfully sad and indeed melancholic as his voice intoned in his rich Ife dialect, he said “Hannah is dead!”.
I inquired from him, though bemused, “who is Hannah?” He responded: “Hannah was the POS girl on our street – Alaafin Avenue, Oluyole Estate, Ibadan, almost in front of the Ace Mall, and not very far from the Late Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s house.
I then asked my driver again, “Is that her name?” He said ‘yes’. But I used to call her “Igbira girl” because she told me she hailed from Okenne in Kogi State. Looking at her, she was probably a lady of about 20 years old – a troubled childhood and an uncharted youthful age, that made her a teenage mother. She came to the city of Ibadan to fend for herself and her infant child. She got the job of a POS machine operator – a job she did with fantastic customer friendliness, dexterity, commitment and honesty.
In these unfortunate days of no ATM Machines to patronize, her kiosk (shop) readily became our abode of patronage where we paid N200 (Two Hundred Naira) on every N10,000 (Ten Thousand Naira) one withdrew. But do we have a choice?
Then, the unfortunate happened on Friday afternoon, the 23rd of August, 2024 at about 4:00pm. The lady had gone to the Bank or wherever, to pick some cash for her evening transactions. The Ace Mall, her neighbour, has a sprawling nightclub with a regular Friday night patronage. She actually went to pick cash to get prepared for the evening business as usual – money withdrawals. Interestingly, this neighbourhood is surrounded by the following banks with their big structures and ATM machines – Zenith Bank, Access Bank, and First Bank across the Mobil Road, GTBank, Stanbic Bank (IBTC), etc., all with dysfunctional ATM machines, due to lack of funds or no funds at all.
Hannah alighted from the okada that brought her back to her shop, unaware that she was being trailed, gunned down by unmasked gun-men from another okada that had followed her own okada, in a swift operation, picked up the cash, and left her swimming in a pool of her own blood. Hannah breathed her last. There was pandemonium! Why is death so cheap?
I asked myself, what is the future of a society where the preponderant of its youthful population are engaged in okada ride, POS machine operations, street hawking, sale of handkerchiefs, unsolicited windscreen cleanups at holdups (gridlocks) and all sorts? Certainly, the future of that society is a trip down the Golgotha.
Perhaps, the death of Hannah, being a metaphor of our present realities, should wake us up from our deep slumber, and begin to ask ourselves, how did we get here? And also ask the operators of Government policies the beautiful question Obafemi Awolowo asked President Shehu Shagari in 1980 when the ship of the Nigerian State was sinking, the latin maxim question – “Qui Bono (in whose interest)?”.
Certainly, policies are not meant for the dead, but the living who must be supported to live a well-meaning life, and a life that is more abundant.
I remember with relish, Athol Fugard’s Play – “Sizwe Banzi is Dead”, that was premiered at the Space Theatre, Cape-Town, South Africa in October, 1972. It was a “deceptively light and humane play” that outlived the Apartheid era.
May the soul of this young and unprotected lady who had deserved a kinder society continually find a peaceful repose with the Lord. (Amen).
Hon. Kehinde, legal practitioner and former member, House of Representatives, 1999 – 2003, representing Ayedire/Iwo/Olaoluwa Federal Constituency of Osun State, wrote from Ibadan.