Think you’re a bone cracker? Try orobo turkey

Life can really be fun when you throw some cares out of the window, come down from a high horse and mingle with everybody in the backwaters of Pax Nigeriana. Even though I don’t think of myself as ever being on a high horse, the job can sometimes mean that I am too busy hobnobbing with the other side of the divide as to not have time to mingle with everybody. That indulgee with an Irish-pronounced Ada (emphasis on the last ‘a’, not the first) for a name will find this difficult to understand, and I wouldn’t blame her one bit! After all, she’s Irish, and she knows herself! But I did that recently somewhere in the Ogba, Ikeja area of Lagos. And girl, was it fun!

So, if you ride on a high horse, try to take some time out, once in a while, and come down from it; and go join the populi and have some good-nature fun. It comes to some people naturally (like this chief indulgee). But if it doesn’t come so to you, try and learn, even fake it. It’s good for your health and it’s good for your wallet or purse (which is really beside the point, since what happens to your wallet or purse is usually not your problem). Sometimes it’s just the experience that matters; and also, the opportunity it offers you to relearn your country, its people – there’s a whole lot of the Nigerian story out there; just go out and look for it. You’d enjoy it because you’d love it.

The fun is often in the stories that come out of the backwaters of Pax Nigeriana. Many of them you haven’t heard in your life. It reminds me of my friend, Justice Abubakar Kutugi. During our time at King’s College, when the Mock African Cup of Nations held (don’t know if it still does) at the Naval Barracks football ground at Ajegunle, Lagos, and attracted the cream of Nigeria’s football stars from home and abroad, he had taken an unforgettable decision to go watch one of the games. When he returned to school, he regaled us with what we all saw was the story of his life (at the time) – about a world so different from the then Ikoyi (not what you have now, pleeeeease) that he lived in. He said many ‘wows’ in the course of delivering his narrative. He saw the moving story of Nigeria from a different perspective.

Coming down from a high horse in the sense that I mean here (not in the offensive sense that it can be used at times) allows you to see this country differently, and perhaps open your eyes to how much you have been failing in your own little duty to contribute to its development (instead of blaming others for everything bad about Nigeria! Hahaha! There you go!). For once, if you are one of those so used to spending a fortune on some items (say, wine, spirit, or even water and food) at some bars, restaurants and/or supermarkets, you are likely to find yourself amazed by how much you are being had! Not that it would matter to you because you and I love our comfort, which some of those expensive places offer. But it is the story we all need to know and share in, about how much our lives are different, yet the same, sharing a common heritage of origin – as they say, we all come from one village or the other, surrounded by mud houses, notwithstanding the selective selfish amnesia some of us suffer from, once we ‘waka’ to the cities, especially Abuja.

You are also likely to find in the backwaters of Pax Nigeriana that there are more chickens and turkeys smuggled into this country than official statistics would capture and admit. It was my friend, Ufuoma Omologe (Me Own Blood Dude, MBD, that’s what this original Waffirian called me back then at the University of Nigeria and still does), that decided he must bring me down from my ‘high horse’, by which he meant that all the excuses of working and working and working late must give way to going to places where work won’t give you time to go to.

So off we went.

There is something about the local. As I quickly got to discover when I landed in the UK a few years ago, everybody has a local. It is a concept that is still very much alive over there. It’s the community’s meeting place where the local gossips are shared and you get to know who has been doing what while you had been away or when you weren’t showing interest in your community’s business. Much more, it is the place where the people shared and contributed to the local politics, and national politics; and discussed sports – football, the races (horse and dog racing), and in the countryside, fox hunting! Ufuoma likes his local – everything is cheap there, but he had another surprise for me.

We have always had “Christmas Turkey” served in Stockport every December for a few years now. It was always the full turkey, stuffed with all sorts and put in the oven to cook. I always do the sharing and so I am familiar with the different parts and who usually gets them. But then, there is my friend here in Lagos, Head Candy, who enjoys cracking bones of all sorts – fish bones, chicken bones, cow bones, goat bones, just name it. When Head Candy starts dealing with bones you’ll be amazed at the clinical expertise with which her teeth make a “meal’ of them. Now, the turkey bones I know in the UK are always crackable! And you know how it is when you get used to a certain way a thing is presented. You tend to assume that there’s nothing about it that could surprise you. That’s until Ufuoma took me to his local at Ogba, Ikeja. There’s something good about coming down from a high horse, I tell you mate!

“Efe! Efe!” It was Ufuoma calling out to his local’s boss. “Bring my friend one pepper soup.” It’s gritty, this place; but you are assured that you are in a place that your friend is very familiar with. You are trying to work it out in your head how you are going to settle into this “one pepper soup” that has been ordered for you. The music is helping, since you love music, as you ready yourself. You see a plate of pepper soup being taken to a customer and your eyes pop out. You have been to Pearle Gardens and Jade, Yellow Chili and many others. But this is a different ball game. Truth is, you have also seen some science fiction-based movies (aliens from outer space invading the earth and looking totally different).

It’s the content of the plate that makes you wonder if this was an alien restaurant. You haven’t seen a turkey part so big before. When you ask, they tell you it is called Orobo Turkey! “Jeez! What’s this?” you ask your friend, afraid there must be something wrong. Assured and reassured that you shouldn’t worry, when your ‘one plate’ is brought to you, you quickly attempt to tuck into the turkey (no pun intended). You think your amazement would end with the size of this piece of turkey part, but that’s until you attempt to get your teeth into the bone! Oh my word! Oh my word! (pardon to that loquacious sports radio commentator on Brilla FM). The turkey bone warns you strongly: “The dentist advises that attempting to tuck your teeth into an Orobo Turkey’s bone is inviting trouble to your teeth.” This is exactly the point, especially as you are reminded once more of your friend Head Candy. You think you can crack bones? Come and try Orobo Turkey!

By: PHILLIP ISAKPA