The Crazy Nigerian

There's never a right time for an identity crisis

During my early years in London, up until the age of four, I exhibited strange behaviours. According to my parents, I would only allow three categories of persons to carry me: my parents (of course), my relatives (didn't have a choice) and white people (ce-le-brate good times, c'mon!). Whenever a black adult other than my parents tried to touch me, I went ballistic.

I was fine with black and white kids in my age group though-I guess they seemed harmless. White people fascinated me. Since I had mostly only seen white people on British Television, when I met them, it was almost as if I was coming into contact with celebrities. I wanted to talk like them, smell like them, have silky straight hair like them, and even have a cool English name like them. As far as I was concerned, I was a white kid in the wrong body (or a 'Bounty': a coconut-filled chocolate bar that is brown on the outside and white on the inside).

If the tiresome act of constantly dodging the advances of black adults was traumatic as a toddler, then coming back to Nigeria felt like I had suddenly been hurled into a field of land mines-black people were everywhere . . . and they were all coming to 'handle' my afro head like the manual gear stick of an old Volkswagen beetle. Eventually, when defeat was imminent, I gave in, and soon after that, I was led astray . . . literally.

It all happened one fateful day in my pre-school of about twenty kids. My mum would usually walk me to school in the morning and come to pick me up in the early afternoon. It must have been almost closing time when two Fulani women, each carrying a transparent glass box of groundnuts and popcorn on their heads, came into the classroom and approached my teacher at the front of the class. They could barely speak English. The class watched as the three of them had a discussion (though my teacher appeared to do most of the talking). Based on the aftermath of this conversation, this is how I believe it must have gone:

'How can I help you?'

(No answer. One of the women looks at all the kids and then points at me!)

'Did his mum say you should pick him up?'

(Again, no answer. Instead, they nodded) 'Okay, go and take him.'

My teacher told me to get my bag and follow the two women. I don't know why I didn't disobey. Could it be that I was somehow fascinated by the way they looked and the way they were dressed? They looked like gypsies. They each had a gold ring in their nose, some gold teeth, and long, thinly-braided black hair. They were dressed in colourful fabric that covered their heads and wrapped all around their bodies. They also sported lopsided bathroom slippers, caused by the 'dragging feet' syndrome.

I waved goodbye to my classmates, almost as if it was my last farewell. They smiled and probably wondered how lucky I was to be the first to leave; it was barely fifteen minutes before the end of the school day. Once the two women and I were outside the school premises, one took my right hand and the other took my left. I swung my arms between the two women and skipped along on the street. I had no idea that I had just been abducted.

I also had no idea where my abductors were taking me or why they had chosen me. All I knew was that they spoke some alien language that I assumed (based on their unique outfits) was 'Hausa'-spoken predominantly in Northern Nigeria. We had barely walked for five minutes when I saw a familiar figure scurrying up towards us in clacking high heels. It was my mum . . . and she was furious. She began screaming at the women and yanked me from their grasp. The women didn't utter a word. Instead, they simply turned round and walked off. The disturbing thing was that they headed back in the direction of the school! I can only imagine how the rest of my life would have turned out if my mum hadn't come to the rescue that day. I might have been speaking fluent Hausa somewhere in the north by now, roaming the streets with a glass box of groundnuts on my head.

As a kid, I had a different perspective on life to the other children around me. Whilst they were busy enjoying life, there I was worrying about death. The thought of dying scared me to the bone. I consoled myself with the fact that it wouldn't happen until I was old and frail. I also avoided contact sports for fear of sustaining fatal injuries. I was more into combat-themed computer games; where the blood spilled wasn't mine.

I also had a very active imagination. When I was ten years old, I was already directing and playing multiple roles in full-length movies with the use of the teddy bears, dolls and action figures at my disposal. My two younger sisters, ages six and four at the time, looked forward to my movie releases because they were packed with action, romance, mystery and mind-bending twists. I soon solicited the acting skills of my sisters when I invented a game called Blood and Fire. We would pretend that the red-carpeted floor in the living room was blood and that when you touched it you would burn to death. I played the hero, my first sister played an excellent villain, and my second sister was the damsel in distress. I even started an in-house band called The Anthonys-my first sister handled the vocals and sang mostly ABBA songs; my second sister played a make-believe keyboard; while I used a couple of books to serve as drums. I knew my parents were usually at work during band practice, so I never bothered asking them to sign up.

With time, I grew more concerned about what my purpose on earth was supposed to be-I didn't have an answer, and nor did my parents, relatives and friends. Life felt like a burden, and it was the same every day: wake up, do yesterday's homework, go to school, come back home, watch cartoons, go to bed at 9 p.m., sneak out of bed to watch a movie, go back to bed, wake up, do yesterday's homework, etc. I yearned for a life less predictable.

Remember that old saying, 'Be careful what you wish for'? Well, I got my wish: my predictable routine suddenly changed. I graduated from primary school and secured a spot at a secondary school . . . in another state, two hours away from home. Also, puberty was welcoming me with open arms: my voice would switch unexpectedly from Michael Jackson to Barry White (may their souls rest in perfect peace) and then back again, and I was growing hair in all sorts of places. My face soon became a constellation of spots, and I was a sack of raging hormones. I no longer understood 'me'. I didn't know where to fit in. Was I the class-nerd or the cool kid with the latest Reeboks? Was I studying in the library or catching a glimpse of my high-school crush? Was I fun to be with or was I the safe alternative to sleeping pills? There was also a personality disorder steadily beginning to manifest itself. I found myself living to please others, and I let people's opinions suppress mine about 99.9% of the time. It hurts me to say it but I was a bit of a pushover.

In my early teens, I was a shadow of myself. I was living life according to the way it was being mapped out by my peers, and they were about as useful as a compass in the Bermuda Triangle. I needed to snap out of my state of complacency. It was one particular edition of 'Awake', a little Christian book for teenagers given to me by one of my aunties, which gave me a whole new outlook on life. I had always attended Sunday school and even some Sunday services with my parents, but, the more I flipped through the pages of 'Awake', the more I felt an unexplainable sense of warmth and understanding. It was as if God was saying to me, 'Everything is going to be okay'. That was my turning point. My sanity was temporarily restored.