The Crazy Nigerian

By Tonwa Anthony

THE CRAZY NIGERIAN is a true life story of a boy on a path of self-discovery. As he shuffles between the United Kingdom and Nigeria, he narrates his amusing childhood experiences and gives his unique perspective on various issues that had a significant impact on his psyche. As he gets older, he comes to grips with the harsh realities of life and finds his own quirky way of dealing with them. Between hearing ghosts and the traumatic experience of going bald, he learns to adapt to his surroundings and make some hard choices, including whether or not he should relocate to Nigeria for good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477218631

Tonwa Anthony

Blogger and writer, TONWA ANTHONY, was born in London and later relocated with his parents to Nigeria where he commenced primary school education. It was during this time that he nurtured his interest in storytelling. He began writing poetry and fiction as a pastime while attending secondary school. He pursued his bachelor’s and master’s degree at Plymouth University and subsequently worked in the retail banking sector. After returning to Nigeria to continue his banking career, he started blogging about his amusing life experiences. The Crazy Nigerian is his first published novel.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I           Killing my name softly

II         There’s never a right time for an identity crisis

III        Dear God, Mum said to ask You instead

IV        Even the crazy ones fall in love

V         Warning! Evil spirit straight ahead

VI        If the square peg fits…

VII      Don’t cry for me Nigeria, the truth is…

VIII     I’m allergic to the N word

IX        She was Russian and her name was Vodka

X         Whisper into my burning ears

XI        Jungle Fever or something like it

XII       The Bald and the Beautiful

XIII     Hire me, please

XIV     Nigeria welcomes the prodigal twit

Bonus

Acknowledgments

I thank the Lord Almighty for making this book a reality. To my two beautiful sisters who served as my source of motivation and inspiration—love you to bits. I’m grateful for having such wonderful, supportive parents with a great sense of humour. Gabriel—thanks for the encouragement and that long overdue kick up the backside. Special thanks to Farrah and Oluchi for your brutally honest reviews during the draft stage. Marissa, thank you for taking the time to do the editing—I know I wouldn’t. Thank you, Ammar, for the creative illustrations. Nnamdi, that front cover is CRAZY! You’ve done me proud. To all my blog followers, I can’t thank you enough for your involvement in this project. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Management of IHC for providing the space that made the last-minute photo shoot possible.

Introduction

When my life really

started to suck

I had been making choices all my life, and there I was in the waiting lounge at Heathrow Airport about to make yet another one: who should I sit next to? There was an empty seat next to a stressed-out mother of three little demons, but it wasn’t tempting enough for me. There was another free seat next to the human Agama lizard who kept nodding in his sleep, but I wasn’t in the mood to give anyone shoulder support. I wanted my space. I kept scanning and straining my short-sighted eyes until I eventually had my Eureka moment—there was a free seat next to a young lady who had no kids with her, was wide awake, and was listening to her earphones. Excellent! I thought.

With roughly two hours to kill before boarding my Lagos-bound plane, I rolled my stroller to the vacant seat and got myself ready to wallow in self-pity. I had reached an all-time low: I was broke, I was being weighed down by a huge credit card bill, I was getting hate-mail from ruthless debt recovery agencies, I was at a dead-end bank job in London with few prospects for promotion, and there was no girlfriend to tell me ‘everything will be okay’.

The girl sitting next to me suddenly spoke: ‘Excuse me… did you go to Chrisland school?’

I wondered if my luck was about to change. ‘Yeah! Were you in my set?

‘No, I was in your sister’s set. You’re her big brother, right?

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘I thought so. But please remind me, what’s your name?’

I paused, not because I had been struck with amnesia but because I knew this was about to be one of those awkward moments with which I was all too familiar…

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I

Killing my name softly

As simple as that question ‘What’s your name?’ may seem, it was a tricky one for me. Of course, I knew what my name was, but it was the unexpected reactions to it that really threw me off balance. It wasn’t the jeering and pointing in my primary school years in Lagos; it was also the ‘I-just-sucked-a-lemon’ expression on job interviewers’ faces that really pissed me off. It was as if they had a sudden attack of nomatophobia (the fear of names). My name, Tonwapiri, originates from the Ijaw tribe of Bayelsa, a state in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Believe it or not, the only complex thing about my name is that the first ‘I’ is silent. But I guess I must be missing something, because I can tell you first-hand about the three-stage process adopted by third parties who consequently murder my beautiful name:

For those who attempt to read my name from some written document (e.g. an attendance sheet, a registration form, a job application, etc.) they first execute the ‘Clint Eastwood-Squint’. Perhaps my name has the cosmic power of being able to shrink in size anytime someone tries to read it. Their good sight suddenly seems to fail as soon as their eyes fall upon my name.

The second action that takes place is the dreaded pronunciation. My name, if pronounced correctly, would take you only two seconds to say. However, most first timers use a whole five seconds: ‘Ton… waaa… priye.’ (Seriously?).

After going through the annoying ordeal of hearing what sounds like the utterances of a drunk recovering from a hangover, the third and most irritating stage is the interrogation. I’ve been put ‘on trial’ from as early as the tender age of seven on account of the assumed weirdness of my name. I can recount an occasion when one of my primary school teachers was taking the class attendance and came across my name for the first time… and murdered it.

‘What kind of name is that?’ (My classmates giggle in the background).

‘It is an Ijaw name, sir.’

‘Er-en! Where are your parents from?’

‘They are from Rivers State.’ (i.e., before Bayelsa was carved out in 1996.)

‘So Anthony is your first name?’

‘No, sir. My name is Tonwapiri.’

‘Uh-huh! And what are your other names?’

‘I have no other names, sir.’

(Shakes head). ‘So what do people call you?’

‘Tonwapiri.’ (Duh!)

‘OK, you can sit down, Anthony.’

At that time, it wasn’t a big deal to me if people called me by my surname (though I would have much preferred ‘Michael’ which was borne by my idol, Michael Jackson). But when I reported the incident to my mum, she insisted that I be called by my first name and nothing else. My dad agreed. I returned to school armed with this new ultimatum, but I was destined for disappointment. The teachers stubbornly called me ‘Anthony’ and, worse still, my classmates gave me names of their own.

On one occasion, my primary school teacher gave the class a verbal aptitude exercise which became the catalyst for one of my absurd nicknames. The exercise required putting three sentences in the correct sequence. So for example, if you had the following sentences: 1) She got ready for school; 2) She took her bath; 3) Sally got out of bed, then the correct answer would be three-two-one. My teacher had been pointing at random pupils to give the correct answer to each question. Eventually the