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Unlike mail boats, which docked at the Lagos wharf on fixed days of the week, cargo boats were most unpredictable. So when the MV Sasa arrived, there were no friends waiting at the Atlantic Terminal for her passengers. On mail boat days the beautiful and airy waiting room would be full of gaily dressed friends and relations waiting for the arrival of a boat and drinking iced beer and Coca-Cola or eating buns. Sometimes you found a little group waiting sadly and silently. In such cases you could bet that their son had married a white woman in England.
There was no such crowd for the MV Sasa, and it was quite clear that Mr. Stephen Udom was deeply disappointed. As soon as Lagos had been sighted he had returned to his cabin to emerge half an hour later in a black suit, bowler hat, and rolled umbrella, even though it was a hot October day.
Customs formalities here took thrice as long as at Liverpool and five times as many officials. A young man, almost a boy in fact, was dealing with Obi’s cabin. He told him that the duty on his radiogram would be five pounds.
“Right,” said Obi, feeling his hip pockets. “Write a receipt for me.” The boy did not write. He looked at Obi for a few seconds, and then said: “I can be able to reduce it to two pounds for you.”
“How?” asked Obi.
“I fit do it, but you no go get Government receipt.”
For a few seconds Obi was speechless. Then he merely said: “Don’t be silly. If there was a policeman here I would hand you over to him.” The boy fled from his cabin without another word. Obi found him later attending other passengers.
“Dear old Nigeria,” he said to himself as he waited for another official to come to his cabin. In the end one came when all the other passengers had been attended to.
If Obi had returned by mail boat, the Umuofia Progressive Union (Lagos Branch) would have given him a royal welcome at the harbor. Anyhow, it was decided at their meeting that a big reception should be arranged to which press reporters and photographers should be invited. An invitation was also sent to the Nigerian Broadcasting Service to cover the occasion and to record the Umuofia Ladies’ Vocal Orchestra, which had been learning a number of new songs.
The reception took place on Saturday afternoon at 4 P.M. on Moloney Street, where the President had two rooms.
Everybody was properly dressed in aghada or European suit except the guest of honor, who appeared in his shirtsleeves because of the heat. That was Obi’s mistake Number One. Everybody expected a young man from England to be impressively turned out.
After prayers the Secretary of the Union read the Welcome Address. He rose, cleared his throat, and began to intone from an enormous sheet of paper.
“Welcome Address presented to Michael Obi Okonkwo, B.A. (Hons), London, by the officers and members of the Umuofia Progressive Union on the occasion of his return from the United Kingdom in quest of the Golden Fleece.
“Sir, we the officers and members of the above-named Union present with humility and gratitude this token of our appreciation of your unprecedented academic brilliance.…”
He spoke of the great honor Obi had brought to the ancient town of Umuofia, which could now join the comity of other towns in their march towards political irredentism, social equality, and economic emancipation.
“The importance of having one of our sons in the vanguard of this march of progress is nothing short of axiomatic. Our people have a saying ‘Ours is ours, but mine is mine.’ Every town and village struggles at this momentous epoch in our political evolution to possess that of which it can say: ‘This is mine.’ We are happy that today we have such an invaluable possession in the person of our illustrious son and guest of honor.”
He traced the history of the Umuofia Scholarship Scheme, which had made it possible for Obi to study overseas, and called it an investment which must yield heavy dividends. He then referred (quite obliquely, of course) to the arrangement whereby the beneficiary from this scheme was expected to repay his debt over four years so that “an endless stream of students will be enabled to drink deep at the Pierian Spring of knowledge.”
Needless to say, this address was repeatedly interrupted by cheers and the clapping of hands. What a sharp young man their secretary was, all said. He deserved to go to England himself. He wrote the kind of English they admired if not understood: the kind that filled the mouth, like the proverbial dry meat.
Obi’s English, on the other hand, was most unimpressive. He spoke “is” and “was.” He told them about the value of education. “Education for service, not for white-collar jobs and comfortable salaries. With our great country on the threshold of independence, we need men who are prepared to serve her well and truly.”
When he sat down the audience clapped from politeness. Mistake Number Two.
Cold beer, minerals, palm-wine, and biscuits wer
e then served, and the women began to sing about Umuofia and about Obi Okonkwo nwa jelu oyibo—Obi who had been to the land of the whites. The refrain said over and over again that the power of the leopard resided in its claws.
“Have they given you a job yet?” the chairman asked Obi over the music. In Nigeria the government was “they.” It had nothing to do with you or me. It was an alien institution and people’s business was to get as much from it as they could without getting into trouble.
“Not yet. I’m attending an interview on Monday.”
“Of course those of you who know book will not have any difficulty,” said the Vice-President on Obi’s left. “Otherwise I would have suggested seeing some of the men beforehand.”
“It would not be necessary,” said the President, “since they would be mostly white men.”
“You think white men don’t eat bribe? Come to our department. They eat more than black men nowadays.”
After the reception Joseph took Obi to have dinner at the “Palm Grove.” It was a neat little place, not very popular on Saturday nights, when Lagosians wanted a more robust kind of enjoyment. There were a handful of people in the lounge—a dozen or so Europeans and three Africans.
“Who owns this place?”
“I think a Syrian. They own everything in Lagos,” said Joseph.
