Ilasa to Ilupeju isn't such a long journey

The first part of my reflective musings on growing up in Lagos

I read an article published in The Republic Journal by Lanaire Aderemi titled, “Everything in Nigeria Leaves a Stain,” about what it’s like growing up in a middle-class home in Nigeria and her reflections on the life she left behind but still is undeniably threaded to as an immigrant in a country with a prominent Nigerian community. It got me thinking about my experience as a firstborn child in the same financial setting in Ilasa, a relatively developed side of Mushin, a notoriously dangerous neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria. I was born in the Redeemed Christian Church of God camp during the annual December program, where people flock from all over the country to listen to General Overseer E.A. Adeboye ahead of the new year. My father was not in the country at the time. He was on a work trip to South Africa and offered my mother the chance to take her along so I’d be given birth to in SA. My mother outrightly refused. When she first told me about the chance my father gave her on a morning drive to Surulere - the location of one of the two secondary schools I attended, the other being in Agidingbi, Ikeja - I couldn’t understand why she’d make that decision. Nigeria had been in regression since I first gained consciousness of the environment around me, so rationally, I figured that it wouldn’t have been any different when she gave birth to me. I thought, “Why wouldn’t you give your child the opportunity to be a dual citizen?” and said it out loud. Clouded by my grief for a life I could have had; I didn’t notice her pensive reaction to my words. If I had inquired further, she would have told me that a girl who grew up with two sisters and a brother in Lokoja, Kogi state, in a Christian home that attended a hilltop church (the climb is very steep, I promise you) did not want her first child to be born anywhere else but home. Home could easily have meant Lokoja as much as it meant RCCG camp or the hospital I got officially registered in a year later in Lagos. Home was Nigeria.

As a kid, all I wanted to do was leave. Before my sister was born, my parents, my younger brother -by a year and a half - and I went on a three-week trip to London. Prior to this, my mother had been a frequent traveler. She really loved going to places and soaking up as much as she could about these different cultures. It inspired a deluge of businesses that sometimes she could not keep up with, but what I’ve always loved about her is the freedom of her spirit and her resilience. I wanted so desperately for my spirit to be as free as hers. I wanted to see the world, make snowmen and snow angels, and celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. I wanted to watch a football game live - specifically Arsenal - and see what it would be like to look down from the tallest building in the world, Dubai. I wanted to visit the Yankee Stadium and touch the grass, even though I knew nothing about baseball. This trip to London didn’t help scourge this lust for more. I asked many times after my sister was born a year later for us to go somewhere again. My mind was everywhere but where my body was: Ilasa - full name Ilasamaja - technically under the Mushin Local Government Area, not too far from Surulere on one side and close to the infamous Oshodi expressway on the other side, just behind Idi-Araba, home of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), which I infrequently visited on recommended by my doctors in a small children’s hospital in Surulere, and frequently visited to buy bread from a now-closed bakery made available to the students that lived in the ancient residential buildings near the main hospital.

I liked going to LUTH. The environment was serene. Although I didn’t want to be a medical professional, I was fascinated by the students who came out in the evenings to play basketball and football under the magnificent trees and buy supplies from the supermarket just beside the bakery. However, I didn’t go to LUTH often until I entered secondary school. My primary school journey took me through the Oshodi expressway every morning to get to Ilupeju, which is close to Maryland. I loved my primary school deeply. My parents did, too. The school’s management intentionally established a relationship with every parent who had their ward enrolled in the school. Because of this, my family became close to a bunch of my teachers, who all became my favorites. I had this particular teacher who visited our first apartment often in Ilasa and even attended my sister’s naming ceremony. She was my English teacher in the nursery section of the school. Through her and all my other teachers from then onwards, I developed a unique love for learning. They made me believe there was nothing I could not understand and showed patience when there were gaps. I look back with great fondness at my Literature teachers, my Mathematics teachers, Science, Yoruba, Igbo, French, Religious Studies, Social Studies, etcetera; they laid an impervious foundation of an affectionate and grounded approach to knowledge. I loved them all deeply. I loved my friends, whom I just could not escape because some of us either went to the same big church in Gbagada, which is also close to Ilupeju, or lived not so far away from each other. Every classmate seemed to be a family friend. Saying that I woke up every day eager to go to school would put a nostalgic gloss over a childhood with as much complexity as my young adulthood, but it’s good that I remember the good times as much as the bad times.

Good times mostly involved the commute home from school with my mother and siblings. The journey home had us taking the shorter route: going through Mushin market to reconnect to the other side of the Oshodi expressway so we could take a turn to Ilasa. It was never a straightforward journey. We always had a friend to visit, a “big mummy’s” house to visit and eat pepper soup at, groceries to buy from the convenience store near my school owned by northerners that my mother befriended. It always bugged me how many people we had to greet, but that’s just how my mother was. She found it easy to make friends in any situation. This ability rubbed off on me eventually. I would occasionally convince my mother to buy puff-puff on the way because if there’s one thing you can be sure of while going through Mushin market, it’s the traffic. As a child, this meant eating my puff-puff and watching the harmonious chaos of unorganized commerce unfold during closing hours through the car windows while the radio was on and my mother navigated the pothole-filled roads. I loved the radio shows that were usually on at the close of the day. 92.3 Inspiration FM always piqued my attention, even the news sections! Sometimes, my mother put on her gospel mix CDs instead of the car radio. I didn’t mind listening to them as the church was a significant part of my upbringing. But when she didn’t, I would interchange between Inspiration FM and 99.3 Nigeria Info FM while we drove by.

Occasionally, we’d stop to buy fish for fish stew and elubo for amala, or goat meat, if my mother’s regular goat meat man didn’t come around the house with a headpan of freshly chopped goat meat. I watched it all unfold with my beady eyes gleaming to see different things. But that was just what being a child was all about. I can’t judge myself too harshly. I’m glad I saw things and wanted more, but I still managed to be present, allowing me to look back on these memories fondly.

There’s still much more to write about, and I can’t wait to share it all with you!