30 DAYS IN LAGOS AND STILL COUNTING...

A phone is ringing in the near distance and wakes me from sleep, the bedside clock reads 3:30am. I stare as my phone continues to flash and my stomach tightens as I just know I'm about to receive a life changing call I have dreaded all my life. I take a deep breath as I answer and hear Uncle Biodun's voice ‘Ola it has happened o……’ every single word he says after this I do not understand as I cannot take anything in. I do however manage to tell him that we will see him later. He assures me he has everything under control, I then drop the phone.


There is a slight problem here though as I’m 3000 miles away in the U.K. and I’ve just been told that my dad has died in Nigeria. My mind is racing, but there is no time to grieve or process what I've just been told. It’s a Wednesday and the last time I spoke with dad was on the Sunday. Dad is a Muslim so I know if I don't get my skates on he’ll be buried before I get to Nigeria. I've got 2 brothers in England and a sister in The United States and they need to be told. I'm looking at the clock and have to make that judgment call whether it's a civil time to let them know. I weigh the odds and know that time is of essence here, no time for drama. The obligatory calls are made but I will spare you the intimate details of how those calls went down.

By 5:45 same morning a Whatsapp group ‘Dad’s Passing’ is created.
First message dropped was from my brother Ahmed at 6.33am informing us that he’ll be catching 9:50am train to Heathrow Airport and would be arriving Lagos at 17:25.  Within a few hours of receiving ‘THAT CALL’, Ahmed is on a midday flight to Lagos thereby landing on same day dad passed. Myself and Akeem also take off from Heathrow that same night arriving Lagos next morning. Heathrow was empty, not many passengers on ground no thanks to COVID 19. Nigeria at this time were more concerned about Yellow Fever with new guidelines for passengers, social media was agog with conflicting information about requirements for travel. For avoidance of stress a dear friend, Uloma tracked down a pharmacy for us to have our yellow fever vaccinations before we travelled that night.
My sister Tawa is also planning her exit from her base in the United States.

The flight to Lagos was a welcome distraction and of full of drama, 2 heated arguments between passengers settled by a very stressed out cabin crew members, another unruly passenger playing Islamic call loud on a speaker and a theft of duty free purchases from the overhead cabins. All passengers are issued with a health form to disclose our current health status and details of forwarding address. The irony is that no one discloses their true location due to fears of details being sold to ‘Boys of the night’ and to avoid ‘late night visits’ at our respective places of residence. We land and our temperatures taken before we are allowed to we file past immigration.


We arrive Lagos to see our dad for the last time and make that journey to our home town, Okun Owa, Ijebu Ogun State same day for his funeral. We return to Lagos and a week later we are back in Ijebu for 8th Day prayers. I have not gone into too much details about our dad because a blog post could never do justice about our relationship with him. I’d need to write a book for that. But those of you that know…will know what he meant to us💔


Dad had a befitting burial and we were overwhelmed with the love and generosity shown to us by sympathisers. There was however this recurring narrative through out the ceremony from people while passing their condolences also expressing their concern about us being in the country when Corona Virus was becoming more topical in Nigeria. At this time the virus had not been upgraded by WHO to Pandemic status.

At this time also Nigeria’s attitude was we people from ‘the abroad’ had come with our diseases, as then there were only a few isolated cases in the country and corona was seen very much as an ‘abroad issue’. We actually experienced people being weary when around us and wearing masks!There was a lot of conflicting news and government directives. There was talk about Nigerian air space being closed from 21st March meanwhile our return flights were booked for the 22nd.

Anyways 2 days before my return flight to Heathrow, my phone pings with an incoming text message from Virgin ‘I’m sorry to advise that flight VS*** is due to be cancelled for operational reasons…’

To be continued.
Have a Good Friday (pun intended) and stay safe 😷

💅🏾