Warri Pikin By Choice Ekpekurede

For a moment, let us drift a little away from the reality of daily hardship occasioned by the political and economic irresponsibleness of the misleaders that have taken over the reins of government. Go back in time with me, if you would, to a few highlights of childhood life in Warri (stylishly nicknamed Waffi) back in the day. The challenge that this setting presents is that a non-Wafferian may be totally lost as to the meaning of many of the words or expressions from the Warri pidgin dialect used in this piece. This is one instance where your Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary is useless. Not to worry: I have endeavored to stay outside of the syllabus of your next examination. Just enjoy the ride.

This will be a brief retrospection. Leave aside for now the historical and political brouhaha of Warri. Whoever seeks to pursue that will find an inundating number of oral traditions, position papers and counter-position papers, books, websites, and organizations to consult: the British Treaties of Protection (1884, 1893, and 1894), www.itsekiri.org, http://waado.org and the Urhobo Historical Society, www.ijawfoundation.org, the Ijaw Youth Council, the Ijaw Elders Forum, the Urhobo
Progressive Union, and the Itsekiri Leaders' Forum, just to mention a few. I assure you that you will not go far in consulting any of those references before you get a feel of the perennial ethnic tension in Warri.

When I was growing up, the ethnic tension was not a bother to me or to my peers with whom I played or went to school. That is how I like to see Warri. Tribal differences had no influence on my choice of friends. It did not matter at all whether they were from Urhobo, Itsekiri, Ijaw, Ukwuani, Igbo, Yoruba, Benin, Esan, Igala, Agbor, Isoko – you name it. We were all Wafferians and we took, and still take, pride in the Warri brand of pidgin English.

I cannot tell you with confidence the current population of Warri. You will see figures from over
300,000 to over 500,000. I have even seen estimates in excess of 1,000,000. The last time I checked the website of the National Population Commission and clicked on the “Censuses” tab to see whether I could find an official population estimate for Warri, I was answered with a dead web page with the inscription “Content coming soon”. That is the website of a major federal agency that has been in existence since 1988! After all, Jesus is also coming soon. The website of the National Bureau of Statistics is even funnier. Besides not making any meaningful statistics readily available, it has a link
on the homepage to “Statistics Office of other Countries.” So I wondered: have these people never checked out those links and compared those websites to the one they have created for Nigerians?

Anyway, according to the controversial 2006 Population Census, the Warri metropolis (comprising Warri South, Udu, and Uvwie local government areas), has a population of 638,250. Documentations, which may have less than scientific accuracy, show the average population density of the Warri metropolis to be 777 per sq. km (Warri South: 479 per sq. km; Udu: 541 per sq. km; and Uvwie: 1311 per sq. km). Warri – and by extension the entire Warri metropolis - is very mixed, but the town is apparently dominated by the Urhobos, the Itsekiris, and the Ijaws – three tribes among whom the battle over the ownership of Warri continues to rage.

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I was born when Warri was part of Mid-Western State (known as Mid-Western Region prior to its renaming on May 27, 1967 by the Yakubu Gowon administration), a state carved out of the defunct Western Region on August 9, 1963 and comprising the Benin and Delta provinces. When I grew to the age of reason, Mid-Western State had on March 17, 1976 been renamed Bendel State by the Olusegun Obasanjo military government, with Benin City remaining as the capital. With hindsight, the further balkanization of Nigeria is indeed regrettable - from 19 states to 21 states (September 23, 1987 under Ibrahim Babangida), to 30 states (August 27, 1991 under Ibrahim Babangida), and to 36 states (October 1, 1996 by Sani Abacha). Not only has the splintering of the states not brought any significant benefits, it also has deepened tribal and ethnic divisions. In addition, it has worsened waste and avoidable duplication of political offices and public spending. It is a key factor in the unsustainable size of our recurrent expenditure. I cannot tell you enough how much I miss the days when we had just 19 states (Anambra, Bauchi, Bendel, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Gongola, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, and Sokoto).

To the non-Wafferian, every time Warri is mentioned oil money comes to mind. True, oil money is important to the economy of Warri, but the economic backbone of Warri is Main Market, Ogbe-Ijaw Market (commonly called San-san Market), Market Road (including McKeeva Market), Pessu Market, Ibo Market, Okere Market, Polokor Market, Igbudu Market (including Hausa Quarters), Enerhen Junction, and Warri-Sapele Road (from Enerhen Junction to Main Market).

“Face-me-I-face-you” is not as rife in Warri as you would find in Lagos. Most Wafferians grew up in “room-and-palour” apartments. Of course, back in the day, we did not use the word “apartment”; we would say “room-and-palour house”. The “ajebutters” among us usually lived in “flats”. It was not uncommon to find an entire family (father, mother, and children) living in one room, with a huge curtain separating the “mama-and-papa bed” from the rest of the room. A “compound” usually has several room-and-palour “houses” or a number of flats or a mixture of both. Oftentimes, when a compound has a flat and several room-and-palour houses, the flat was occupied by the landlord. Weekend was usually the time to “wash gutter”. Washing of “gutter” would rotate among the tenants and the landlord and it was often a major reason for quarreling.

Whoever washed gutter had the responsibility that week of washing the “man toilet” and the “man bathroom” and the “woman toilet” and the “woman bathroom”, which were communally shared by the “compound people”. Washing the toilet hardly made the originally white ceramic toilet bowl white. At best, the bowl would still be mostly covered with green-brownish gunk that almost never came off – even with hard scrubbing. Luckily, most latrines were pour-flush latrines, with the rim of the toilet flush with the floor; so, we did not have to worry about sitting on the toilet; we squatted to “kaka”. By the way, toilet paper was a luxury; cheaper alternatives were in rich supply: old newspapers, “cement paper”, paper torn from old school exercise books or other books, or water. We also had to make sure
we went to the toilet with water for flushing. Every now and then, someone would sneak into the toilet, defecate, and sneak out without flushing. You might also be unlucky to find the floor of the toilet splashed with “oprokotorprokotor shit”.

The bathrooms were not the best places to be either. I hated to let my bare skin touch the walls, even after they had just been washed.

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In many ways, our compound was like one huge extended family. My parents did not have to be around for me to be punished for bad behavior. Every “brother” or “sister” in the compound was at liberty to mete out punishment. Then they would later relate my misbehavior to my parents, who would deliver another round of punishment for the same offense. These days, children, especially those “wey their papa hold pepper”, get as punishments timeouts, curfew, no-TV, or they have privileges such as going to a party or overnighting at a friend's house suspended. I was not as lucky. I knelt down and closed my eyes with my hands raised up; I did “pick-pin”; I did “sit-on-the-wall” with hands stretched out in front of me and raised to shoulder level; I had the back of my hands struck with the bladed edge of metal- edge rulers; I was flogged with “water-cane”, “koboko”, and belts; I got “wozed” and “konked”. Especially with my mother, every infraction of mine was met with a ruthless “bulala”. School
discipline was not any different. One time, four of my classmates were made to hold my hands and legs, one on each limb, while my teacher lashed my “yansh” almost like a slave-master would. My mother happily stood by and cheered them on.

Granting that some parents abused the practice, corporal punishment, for Wafferians and Nigerians in general, was a very – in fact, the most – acceptable method of child discipline.

Let us stay on the subtopic of school life for a moment. I went to two primary schools: Agbassa Primary School and Dogho Primary School 'A'. I did not attend “akara school”. School routine was about the same for all public schools in Warri. The first business of the day was the “assembly”, where we received moral or religious instructions and announcements. Every school day, we sang the National Anthem (“Arise, o companshon; Nigeria's call . . .) and recited the National Pledge. We also
said the Lord's Prayer: “Our father who art in heaven, allo be thy name; thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth assissi heaven . . . .” At the assembly, we always sang. Below are some of our regular songs:

1. “To me, to me, no mascarama she may be, she may be; I have traveled round the world; I've been looking for Mama; there is nothing like Mama to me.”

2. “The day is bright, bright and fair, o happy day, the day of joy; the day is bright, bright and fair, o happy day. Happy day!”

3. “Thread the needle, thread the needle; long, long thread the needle; the needle long, long thread; our bisis-a-ay, bisis-a-ay; up up Dogho school – hurrah! Up up Dogho school; Mr H. M. headmaster – hurrah!”

4. “Holiday is coming, holiday is coming; no more morning bells, no more teacher's whips.
Goodbye, teachers; goodbye, scholars; I am going to spend my jolly holiday, my jolly holiday, my jolly holiday.”

5. “O my home, o my home, o my home, o my home; when shall I see my home? O o o o o o when shall I see my native land? I shall never forget my home.”

6. “Bah bah bla [black] sheep, have you any woo [wool]; yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags foo [full]; one for my master, one for my day [dame], one for the little boy who leedandelay [lives down the lane].”

The list could be very long. Let us leave it there. We marched as we sang. We got in trouble if we were caught not marching. We marched to our classes in an orderly fashion. The boss of the class was the class “aunty” or “uncle”, depending on whether the class teacher was a female or a male. Every class contributed money to buy brooms and, at least, one bucket for storing drinking water during class time. The class teacher or the “monitor” assigned who swept the class and who fetched water. It was the monitor who wrote down the names of “noise-makers” and the names of those who spoke pidgin in class. Boy, we dreaded to have our names on those lists. When we smelt foul air in the class, we knew someone “don mess”. One sure way of catching the culprit was for everybody to stand up “make dem smell our yansh” in turn. This method never failed. We usually blamed the class teacher for our bad grades: “The teacher cut my mark give the monitor.” You were regarded as clever if, as shown in your end-of-term report cards, you regularly “carried” 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

During “labour days”, we were each expected to go to school with an “ojigbe”. Failing to report with an ojigbe earned us lashes. We would cut grass with our ojigbes and go home often with blisters in our hands. It was not a big deal.

These days, we take ironing of clothes for granted. Even though my uniforms were regularly washed, I never had my school uniforms ironed, from primary 1 to primary 6. We did not even have an electric iron in those days – and it was not because my parents could not afford it.

Break times were always fun. We did long jump, “running”, and “jumping”. For the guys, our biggest recreational activity was soccer – it could be “choosing”, “monkey post”, “raking”, “court”, “sufferly” or “centerly”, or a match between two classes. We very much cherished our peers who were good soccer players. A good soccer player should be a team player, but should also have personal, admirable soccer skills such as the skills of doing “heighting” or “throwing shagalo” or dribbling an opponent and getting the ball through the opponent’s “leaking-pio”. When we played matches, it was not uncommon for one or both sides to do “ekpor” (also called “jass” or “medi”). The most common type of ekpor was one that involved “odoko” (also called “red neck”) and a piece of red cloth. The side that won often went home with a song of celebration. The commonest song that I remember is this one: “Win dem, win ekpor; win dem, win jersey.” Playing soccer in the rain was fun. We would challenge the opposing side with the song “Rain ball, come down.” Soccer, however, was not always played in a friendly way. Oftentimes, we resorted to “ugbo”, singing as we played: “Ugbo yan yan yan, ugbo.” For the girls, “Siwe” and “panyan” were very popular games.

Those of us who were given money to school and those “wey thief money come school” bought food during break. We did not let go any opportunity to get “muni” on what we bought. If you “bet” “I-like- my-thing”, you would have to surrender your food to your partner if you did not say “I like my thing” before he said “I like your thing.” You would also surrender it if you “bet” “tiko” and your partner succeeded in slapping your food out of your hand. Vendors sold all kinds of food: “jolo-jolo”, “kpeku”, “ice fish”, white rice and stew (including dodo and beans), banga-rice, coconut-rice, jolof-rice, “butter- bread”, “usi-pheniyan”, “coconut cando”, “bole”, “ube”, moi moi, agidi, akara, “agidi-jolof”, “ikara”, “kuoka”, “congo-meat”, “kpekere”, cherry, mango, orange, guava, “ebelebo”, “oghighen”, “isheku”,
“owe” or bush-mango, “sawashop”, “paw-paw”, “chenjerin”. “tapioka”, “guguru and groundnut”, “Hausa groundnut”, “akpu biscuit”, “kpokpo-madiga”, “kuli-kuli” - you name it.


We had other game choices at home: “war-start”, “wording”, “otori”, “sisiskilolo”, “mopo”, “polingo”, “oko”, “oto”, “koso”, whot, ludo, and “rubber-seed”, for example. “Jangoliva” was also very fun. You might remember that in otori, your goal was to enter “ugba”; you might also remember the otori song: “Otori, ototo; I dey come-o, yes-o; make I come, yes-o; who I catch, yes-o; I go take am do pepper- soup-o, yes-o.” We also did non-monetized gambling games. Common ones in this category included the card games (“animali”, “footballers”, and “musicians”), “cherry-seed” (especially “nearest-to-the- wall” and “kill-and-pack”), “sardine key”, and “koso”. It seemed then that once you started playing “jogba” you were on your way to becoming a “jaguda”. Potentially injurious games included “koto”
and “sopi”. I am not sure if “sopi” can be regarded as a game, but I do not know what else to call it. We did other dangerous things such as “tangoliing” the backs of moving pick-up vehicles. Then we had our local acrobatics: “backy”, “backy-to-backy”, “backy-to-fronty”, “big bose”, “hand-no-touch”, “Ishan [for Esan] style”, and “iron-sheen”.

We were also very creative. We made “borris motor”, “mili-cup tire motor”, safes, “kpasha” (especially during the Okere juju feast), “fawo cage”, “bird cage” from bamboo, kites (that often got stuck on overhead electric cables), and drums (made with “baby-food-cup”, umbrella cloth, and elastic bands cut from old tire tubes). We scavenged additional toys from “oyibo dirty”. Because I just mentioned “fawo cage” and “bird cage”, let me quickly recall some of the common birds found in Warri. I and my
friends had a lively discussion on Facebook recently when I brought this topic up. Gladly, they made the bird list more up-to-date (and this is by no means comprehensive). Common birds in Warri include the following: “tolotolo”, “agric-fawo”, “native-fawo”, “old-layer”, “dada-fawo”, “gini-fawo”, “keneri”, “gri-gri, “okoloko”, “lekeleke”, “God-bird”, “cleany”, “ogwe”, “weaver”, “ole-fawo”, “kpukpuyeke”, “zin-bird”, “killi-fisher”, “okpukpuru” (which was always regarded as a witch), and “lekuku”.

I told you at the beginning that I was going to be brief. In a bit, I will shut up. We hunted birds with catapults and with our bird cages. We went fishing on ponds covered with “tebetebe”, using “shikoko” as our fish bait. I think some people also used “ogoro-fish”. During the dry season, when water had receded from the ponds, we would “dig pond” to catch “orhuenre”, “oworo”, and other fish. Our bait for catching “ogoro” (both “okpolo” and “ekere”) was usually the red “Niko paper”. Catching “adadamu” was not very easy; it was much easier to catch “abaka”, a lot of which we caught and housed in empty matches boxes.

Although Warri is a coastal town, very many Wafferians lacked swimming skills. We did not have access to swimming pools, where we could have learnt how to swim, and we were not allowed to go to any river to swim. We did, however, take the initiative to learn the art. Even though we knew our parents would “ekwe” us if we got caught, we sneaked out of the house to various “dambas”. There were quite a few dambas in Warri; Gallup-7 was well known. In those days, we heard stories of how children got drowned in certain dambas, but that did not deter us. We learnt several ways to prevent our parents from detecting that we had gone to swim in a damba. One way was to apply Vaseline on our body after swimming to prevent our skin from appearing “white”. You could also use “ori-ibi” or “ori-ikokodia” in place of Vaseline. Another way was to close our eyes when we went under the water to prevent our eyes from appearing red.

One characteristic feature of Warri was that almost every Warri “pikin” had a “guy name” (a nickname). We teased each other a lot with those names. We also had names for certain human anatomical features. For example, if you had a big head, we would call you “ozengbe”. If the head was long along the sagittal plane, we would call you “opi longi”. You would often be teased with the song “Opi longi, Onitsha mango.” If you were fat, we would call you “atigbi”. You would be teased with the song “Atigbi tigbamgbam tigbam.” If you were very skinny, you would be “tinigboko”. You would be teased with the song “Tinigboko skelenti gboma.” If you were very tall, you would be “ogolongo.” If you were short, you would be “eteh”. If you had a big navel, you would be “big pompu”. If you had a big belly, you would be “ogoro bele.” If you had bowlegs, you would be “kobo-leg”. Knock knees would be “k-leg.” Furthermore, do not expect to hear the correct English names for things in Warri. Be prepared to hear names like “okrubas” (ant), “okpor” (walking stick), “mugu” (someone who is
naive), and “lakpalakpa” (ringworm).

When we did not get along well, we would “bet enemy” with each other. We snubbed each other with “Shamkpa; enter my armpit; if here no contain you, here go contain you.” Saying “shamkpa” to your peers was a good way to “bunch” them in public. Fighting, as you would expect of children, was also common among us. We often goaded our pears into fighting with the song “First to blow, toro; first to blow, toro.” When involved in a fight, you would do your best not to let the other guy “take you take saigbotor” and not to let him “put san-san for your face”.

There was a very exhilarating gimmick we played on pedestrians. At night, especially after NEPA “don seize light”, and it was very dark, we would sit somewhere in front of our compound, at a spot where we could see oncoming passersby on the street. Unknown to passersby, we would have a piece of
snake-like material on the opposite side of the street – across from our compound. A string, which could not readily be seen in the dark, would be tied to the material. As a passerby got close, we slowly pulled the attached string to create the simulation of a snake crawling across the street. Almost always, the passerby got thrown into a frenzy. We got our kick from that.

Kidnapping was not one of our childhood fears in Warri. Our fears were the spirits that came from the “bedigran” on Cemetary Road and those ghosts that lived in Elders Town Primary School, in the woods and trees of Ojojo Primary School, and in the bush behind Olodi Primary School. We feared “gbomo- gbomo”, “iko-iko”, “omote-kpokpo”, “fairy market”, and “Agbassa juju”. We feared every “ojuju” even though we danced “ojuju Calabar”. We feared those household-name “jagudas” like Ogobo, Agbassa Robinson, and Enerhen Giant. We also feared those jagudas that seized our balls and “obtained” us at Olodi Primary School. Yes, we were fearful of those guys who fought with “itagba” or “otishe” (“blow-and-fall, slap-and-fall”, etc.).

My parents never took me to any amusement park, but I got entertained a lot. We would watch “Hausa- cut-im-bele” right in front of my mother's store. We watched live Ishan (Esan) dance at home and Okere juju dance during the Okere juju feast. There were several local performances that we watched for free, especially at Market Road and at San-san Market.
 
Market Road was a second home for me. There my mother had her “provision” store. By the way, she was a distributor to Lever Brothers - yes! Like very many Warri children, I helped my mother to sell. Occasionally, I would hawk some of our merchandise in and around Market Road. Yes, I helped in the business, but that was how I got the most access to  “gbeskele” my mother's money. I also sneaked out of the store, on occasion, to do  “carry-carry” - and this was before the days of  “wheelbarrow”, which has now replaced carry-carry in all the markets in Warri.

Nowadays, children talk of dishes or silverware. Back in the day, we had “rubber” plates, “iron” plates, and “breaking” plates. “Evwere” was used mostly for banga soup. We made eba with “oturni-garri”. When we washed a pot that had become blackened by fire, we washed the “shacoal” off with sand or “iron spwensh”. These days, we hear of fast foods and other good stuff from Mr. Biggs, Sizzlers, and Double Delight. Back in the day, we had “bons”, “kpof-kpof”, egg-roll, meat-roll, meat-pie, and beans- pie. We “soaked” garri with beans, groundnuts, coconut, or “kanie [palm nut] seed”. We did not have candies; we had “toffee”. “Kroker fish [for croaker?]” did not exist in our world then; we did just fine with “okaka” and “sabida”. “Men” did not worry about Hennessy and Baileys; they were content with Squadron, Chelsea, and Schnapps. And "ogogoro" was a readily available “cheap highness”. We did not eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner; we ate “morning food”, “afternoon food”, and “evening food” - unless you were an ajebutter.

They talk of cable and satellite TV now; then we scrambled to find a space to watch the few black-and- white televisions in the compound when it was time for Hotel De Jordan, CI5 (The Professionals), Tales By Moonlight, Mirror in the Sun, The New Masquerade, etc. We sometimes had to go to other people's compound to watch TV. This was especially true during the days of Things Fall Apart. When we finally got our TV, I went out every night to “turn” the TV pole in order to tune the TV to the right channel. Of course, we were limited to NTA (Benin, Lagos, Port-Harcourt, and Aba) and BBS (Bendel Broadcasting Service). We did not have fireworks; on Christmas's eve and New Year's eve, we “shot” “knockouts” and ran around with “bisco”.

Now I must really shut up. You see, Warri has changed a lot – unfortunately, not for the better. Back in the day, the post office was really functional. They brought letters and packages to our compound and placed them in the little in-bound mailbox in front of our compound. We had pipe-borne water from Water Board. We did not have to worry about kidnapping or the forms of violence or thuggery that happen in the town today. People did “civil defense” with bare hands in those days. Guns were not as common as they are today. Only a few people, such as Akataka on Okumagba Avenue, had guns for
self-defense. The Hausa “watch-nights” that were hired as night guards had bow and arrow only.

There were no community “youths” (no Uvwie youths, no Okumagba youths, no Ekpan youths, no Igbudu youths, no Ogborikoko youths, no Ejeba youths, no Itsekiri youths, no Ijaw youths - no youths of any kind). Warri was a safer and a more lawful society. Now insecurity has gone through the roof.

Now we have many parallel governments in Warri: the constitutional governments (federal, states, and local), the government of traditional rulers and community chiefs, the governments of youths of over a dozen different ethnic communities, the governments of touts and “agberos”, the government of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, the government of police and soldiers, and the governments of several provincial “ogbologbos”.
 

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