A hectic day in the city of Lagos

It was Tuesday, and eight days to Christmas.

The book presentation at the Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, was scheduled to commence at 9 am with the arrival of guests and a leisurely entrée with coffee, canapés, and networking. At 10 o’clock, formalities would kick in.

You had pulled out all the stops of your morning rituals, starting from waking up at the ungodly hour of six thirty am.

By 7:30 am you were on the Lekki-Epe Expressway, just getting past VGC.

The first sign of trouble emerged as you approached the Chevron tollgate. Vehicles in different states of disrepair were backed up thickly before the tollgate columns, and, as usual, people were driving madly, jumping into other people’s lanes and raising a racket with their horns.

You reflected that you had plenty of time.

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Some trailers had fallen on hard times somewhere, and things would be better once you passed the obstruction.

It took an hour to get to the Chevron traffic lights.

Ominously, the tailback continued as far as the eye could see. Your Waze map, which had predicted you would be at the venue of the event before 9 am, was revising its estimation upwards by the minute.

By the time you made the Circle Mall Junction, which was usually the most problematic pressure point, the alarm bells were jangling in your head. The Waze map’s arrival time was now inching close to 10 am, and the first calls were coming in from the venue.

The cause of the monumental tail back was yet to be discerned.

‘They are not likely to start without you’ came words of comfort from your wife in the next seat. The words did not offer much assurance.

Eventually, at the next traffic lights, you discovered the culprit – a big slab of concrete that had been dropped slap in the middle of the road by a truck. Once past it, cars flew, like birds released from a cage.

Frank, the BUSINESSDAY Publisher, was on the phone now. You assured him you were good to go for ‘10 – sharp’.

“The celebrant looked resplendent, dancing amidst the eddying love.”

A few minutes later, Frank was giving his welcome speech, explaining BUSINESSDAY’s passion for healthcare as a crucial area of business, service, and development in Nigeria, and the logic behind your publication of ‘FRONTLINE HEALTH FACILITIES IN NIGERIA.’

Goodwill messages followed. From Ogbeni Oja, Dr Sony Folorunsho Kuku, frontline physician, the ‘K’ in Eko Hospital, who harped on Health Insurance as the only way to break the bottleneck of financial access to cutting edge healthcare for citizens, and to make the humongous cost of setting up and running ‘Frontline’ facilities sustainable. From Mrs Kemi Ogunyemi, Special Adviser on Health to the Governor of Lagos. From Prof Tokunbo Fabamwo, CMD of LASUTH, who recalled you were classmates at Government College, Ibadan, and told the story of how one day, in Form 1, he had challenged you to a writing competition. At the end, you submitted your scripts to a senior student to judge.

Fabamwo’s narrative departed from history at that point, as he presented the judge’s decision, which was a predictable rout, as a verdict of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’

LASUTH, he said, beyond the joke, was focussed on maximally utilising public private partnerships to deliver affordable care to the public on a par with the private sector.

You delivered your Author’s Notes, starting with a risqué historical joke about how and why Balogun Kuku, the Merchant, Warlord, Patriarch and his entire Kuku clan of Ijebu Ode became Muslims. The Ogbeni Oja nodded his acknowledgement.

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The book unveiling followed. Photographs. Glad handing. Relief that ‘All is well that ends well’.

You headed for Bisola Durosinmi-Etti Drive, in Lekki. Engore Toun, former table tennis international and sometime wife of your friend – writer, publisher and man-of-the-world Tunde Fagbenle, was celebrating her 70th birthday. At the table was ‘Big Sheg’ – ‘Mathematical’ Segun Odegbami, an almost mythical figure in Nigerian Sports – owner of a Sports Radio station, a Sports Academy and Sports Bar, and – most importantly, the Green Eagles Number 7 jersey in perpetuity, according to some.

Others joined you. Wahid Enitan Oshodi, President of African Table Tennis Federation. Prof Tunde Makanju, authoritative insider on Sports Administration in Nigeria.

You joined other members of the Efunkoya Foundation to present a tribute and a gift to Engore, a live wire of an ongoing drive to return Table Tennis to its glory days. The celebrant looked resplendent, dancing amidst the eddying love.

Bayo was in the next seat. Professor of Humanities, writer of a long-running Sunday newspaper column that was required reading for powerful people in the land, including, it was said, the President, with a headline image of a jaw stuck out in an attitude that was both pugnacious and libidinous, smoking a pipe.

‘I hope you are not going to write about me!’ he warned darkly as the conversation flowed.

He joined you on the journey to your next stop, where Bashorun Jaiye Randle was celebrating his father, Chief JK Randle, the Lisa of Lagos, who died, at 47, on 17th December, 1957, and whose funeral procession was led by jockeys of Lagos Race Club, where he was Chairman, followed by the Oba’s staff, White Cap Chiefs, War Chiefs and Title Chiefs, and members of Island Club, which he founded, as well as the Nigerian Olympic Empire and Commonwealth Games Association, which he headed.

It was dusk when you arrived at Ologunkutere Street.

JK was the soul of hospitality. Seafood. Rare champagne. Bayo opted for Smirnoff, looking suitably professorial as he downed the stuff.

When you eventually made to leave, you whispered to Bashorun.

‘I’m leaving my friend in your charge.’

Bayo looked up suspiciously.

‘What did he say?’

‘He was asking about the weather,’ Bashorun replied promptly.

‘Are you a weatherman?’ Bayo asked, with a scowl.

The band on stage erupted in an Eyo chant. Bashorun went up to dance, followed by several ladies from the Randle clan.