Being echoes of a Reporter’s recent furtive shuttle in the Garden City’s belly of thunder
By Yinka Fabowale
Until just a fortnight ago, the one and only time I ever visited Port Harcourt was exactly 23 years ago.
Then I was a love-struck bachelor gone in search of my fiancé who was doing her national youth service in a bank in the Rivers State capital.
Visiting Port Harcourt at the time held a fascination for me. What with stories of the beauty of the Garden City and circulating oil money that made its social life throb!
If there were seedy aspects of this compact, neat city, such as the presence and activities of vicious criminal gangs, they were not on the large scale witnessed in subsequent years up to the present time.
Two weeks ago, I was privileged to be in the city again, in a team of media consultants and professionals invited to provide publicity and related services for the anniversary celebration of a foundation owned by a famous and big Niger Delta family.
My other colleagues included Kola Igandan of Push Media; Toye Fawole of R&D Watch; Austin Udueni, PR specialist with Canwood; Tomide Olukuade, veteran broadcaster and CEO of Blue Velocity; Femi Adebayo, a graphics/brand specialist and Ovosa Diejomaoh, a newspaper journalist.
Going to Port Harcourt this time, however, was with some trepidation, particularly with the wave of worrisome news of kidnapping, robbery, cult clashes and other violent crimes emanating from the city!
Just as we were setting out on the trip from Lagos, reports of psychopathic murders of women in hotels in the city had begun making the rounds, further dipping my enthusiasm in freezing waters. I nevertheless braved the odds and joined my colleagues.
But there seemed nothing to be afraid of, as our hosts had made arrangements for our security throughout the duration of the week- long programme.
The first sign of this was at the airport where we were received by their protocol unit and mobile policemen. We were ferried in a gleaming commuter bus sandwiched between a pilot and escort cars at the rear of our vehicle.
As assuring as this should be, it only reignited fresh apprehension in me as a series of “what if …” invaded and tormented my mental thoughts.
We were lodged in an exquisite hotel on Harbour Road owned by our hosts. With exclusive beautiful interior and exterior, courteous and friendly staff, functioning facilities including an Olympic-size swimming pool, a rich bar, standby power generator and elevator, the hotel, I judged, must be five-star. There were CCTV cameras installed on each floor and the precincts, save for the rooms and suites, apparently in deference to guests’ need for privacy.
I wondered why such luxury hotel should be sited in this neighbourhood, regarded as the old central part of the city, mostly populated by the local people? The knowledge that it was situated close to the water front, which, we were told, led to different remote creeks of the riverine areas of the state also gave me creepy feelings as I imagined gun-toting militants or kidnappers could easily snatch anyone onshore and disappear through the brackish canal.
The explanation was that the patriarch of the owner-family, a renowned politician and philanthropist, chose the location as a gesture of identifying with the people, being a grassroots man himself.
As soon as I had settled in my room on the fourth floor, I called the restaurant on the intercom and requested for lunch. The hotel staffer who picked the phone reeled out a series of options on the menu from which I picked pounded yam served with Oha soup, with croaker fish and snails to go with it.
“Will you like it served in your room or are you coming downstairs, sir?” he asked politely. “Room service, please”, I quipped and hung up, after having his assurance the food would be ready in a quarter of an hour. True to the man’s word, exactly 15 minutes afterwards, the steaming food was brought up to me by a waiter.
The man withdrew from the room with a slight bow after having me signed the bill, which bore an eye-popping figure. I then settled to devouring the delicious meal. About half way into the plate, I already felt satisfied. I’d eaten only the fish and now proceeded to slowly eating the four average- sized snails swimming in the soup plate. I felt like a greedy python unable to move after having a big feast. I then spent the rest of the hours watching the TV in my room.
Later in the evening, I decided to savour the taste of yet another food on the house menu. It was a lady who answered the phone this time. She introduced herself as Lizzy. After taking my order and room number, she hesitated and brokenly informed me: “Er…,er…, sorry sir, I’m told you are entitled to just two meals per day-breakfast and lunch or dinner. Since you have had lunch when you came this afternoon, that has covered what you’re expected to have for today”.
Although a bit disappointed, I nevertheless thanked the lady and dropped the receiver, consoling myself that the last meal was king-size enough to last me till the following morning.
We had a busy schedule to keep the next day and had thus been instructed to be ready by 8.00 am when the bus would come fetch us. So, as soon as I woke up at dawn and was doing toiletries, I rang the restaurant again for breakfast. It was again Lizzy, the lady on the night-shift who picked the phone. No sooner than I began making my request than she curtly albeit politely cut me short: “Sir, I am sorry, you aren’t entitled to breakfast”
“And why?” I demanded, my stomach churning.
“Well…,” she explained: “You overshot the limit of your food expenses on the house with what you ordered for lunch yesterday” she cooed.
“Ha! E egba mi!” I mused.
“Okay, can I know what the limit is, so we don’t have this kind of embarrassing situation again”, I asked Lizzy. She obliged and by the time she finished her explanations, I discovered I’d overshot what I was entitled to by over N2,000 at a single sitting!
“But of course, you can still have your breakfast if you will pay by yourself,” Lizzy suggested.
“No. thanks,” I replied and hung up on her, suddenly inspired by the thought that it has been long I observed my occasional fasting, which I did for health reasons. It certainly would do me good this time anyway, I convinced myself.
I went to shower and was dressing up when the phone rang. It was Kola who was coordinating our team. He advised that I quickly get ready and order breakfast as the bus would arrive the hotel in about 30 minutes time to pick us.
I explained to him what Lizzy said concerning breakfast for me. My colleague busted into a protracted laughter, intermittently shouting the alias he gave me: “Baba Fabo, Baba Fabo…Fabo Oloyin…” Of course, Kola was not one I should expect any sympathy from. He and I enjoyed poking fun at each other a lot and often made a joke of even serious matters.
Shortly after, the seven of us converged at the entrance of the hotel from where we were chauffeured first to the secretariat of the foundation and thereafter to a radio station and back again to the office of the foundation.
In between the trips, I got the chauffeur to take me to a local eating joint where I ate Fufu with Afang soup. Very tasty and delicious meal. But I was at first miffed at the hardness of the shells of periwinkles in the soup, which, mistaken them for snails, I picked with every morsel, only to drop beside the plate, when it felt like I was crushing granite between my teeth. Thanks to the canteen owner, who seeing my frustration, told me the softer meat inside was to be sucked out through the orifice of the shell. I tried the advice and felt like eating nothing else than Afang soup throughout my stay in the Garden city!
Later that evening my forfeiture of breakfast that day became the subject of a hilarious discussion as everyone in the team gathered at the restaurant for dinner. And who else to start the joke but Kola! Incidentally, Lizzy was on duty that night and was summoned to a mock trial by the jury to explain why I should be made to go starving almost all day.
A very friendly lady, Lizzy joined in the drama, while carefully remaining in her official role as a staffer of the hotel. She apologised, attributing the incident to lack of communication gap in house on one hand, and between the hotel management and ourselves, on the other. Yet, that did not stop my colleagues from making the incident the butt of jokes for the rest of the days I spent with them in Port Harcourt. Whenever we had dinner together and before anyone booked for food, he or she was reminded of my ordeal and warned not to dare order for snails, whose prohibitive cost appeared to have caused my trouble.
Some other times, wherein the person was unsure what to order, he was egged on to try out snails, with the mischievous advisers throwing meaningful looks in my direction. I have not been in a more witty and humorous party as this was in a long time. We really had fun.
- Yinka Fabowale is the Editorial Board Chairman of The Radiance.
