Welcome!

When I moved in with my sister at Pedro Police Barracks, Shomolu, I thought I had landed in the middle of the Tower of Babel. Every language was spoken here, every tribe was represented, and every cooking pot contributed to an endless food battle in the air. You couldn’t walk ten steps without your nose being hijacked, one corner smelled of fresh okra soup, and by the next, it was as if someone had boiled their laundry in palm oil.

I didn’t like living there, too noisy, too crowded, too full of people who loved loud arguments about things that didn’t matter. But my sister and her husband were police officers, and the barracks came with the job. So, I adapted. Children adapt fast; we don’t dwell on where we are, we just scan for who to play with.

My school, Saviour’s Primary, was a short walk away. I made friends quickly, children are like Bluetooth, no passwords, just instant pairing. Years later, after moving to Igbobi College, Yaba (a boys-only school), I still kept in touch with a few of those old friends. One of them was John.

John’s father was also a police officer. They’d once lived in the barracks, but when his dad got transferred to Ibadan, he left his two wives and nearly a dozen children in a small, rented room nearby. I say “nearly” because even now, I’m not sure whether it was ten or eleven kids, headcount was tricky when they kept popping out from behind doors like stage magicians’ rabbits.

John’s stepmother was a woman of business and spirit, literally. She sold two things that made her the unofficial minister of mood adjustment: local dry gin and cigarettes. Her small stall was the headquarters of a ragtag crew I christened the Paraga Boys.

Among them was Tunde, nicknamed Tunde Osu because he was a third-year philosophy student at Ogun State University. He had a habit of greeting people with a solemn “Good evening” regardless of the time of day, and could turn any casual chat into a philosophical debate about the meaning of life. I suspect the paraga gave him his gift of gab, while I was just high on my own organic ginger shots.

Then there was Salam, a Kwara Polytechnic graduate with a degree in Business Administration who somehow managed to spend most of his days not administering any business at all.

And finally, there was Wale, an unforgettable character who drove a battered Mitsubishi Beetle manual. One fateful afternoon, Wale decided it was time I learned to drive. “It’s simple,” he said, tossing me the keys like we were in a Bollywood action movie.

I had never driven a car in my life. But armed with misplaced confidence, I slid into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, and miraculously moved the car forward. My moment of triumph lasted all of four seconds like a man with weak ejaculation. In the blink of an eye, the glory was over, replaced by the sickening thud of metal meeting metal as I crashed straight into a man who had just stepped out of his brand-new car.

This wasn’t just any car, it was fresh from the Lanre Shittu Motors. The man had taken his family out to an eatery to “wash the car,” as we say in Nigeria, meaning to celebrate the purchase with food and drinks. Instead, he ended the day in a hospital bed.

The injuries were serious; he stayed admitted for over two months. My sister ended up paying for his hospital bills, and to this day, I’m still not sure what hurt him more, the physical injuries or the heartbreak of watching his newly “washed” car get smashed before it even dried.

Through it all, John stayed the same, never touched paraga, never smoked, and never missed church. I called him Pastor Spinner because every time I tried to make him talk about his crush, Ibukun, he’d spin the topic away like a DJ scratching a record.

But John’s house had another attraction for me, Rashida, their neighbour. Rashida was young and beautiful, in the same year as me in secondary school, though we attended different ones. Her mother sold soft drinks and biscuits, and Rashida ran the stall with quiet efficiency. On days when ginger shots weren’t available, I’d buy a chilled malt drink instead, only I never actually paid. She’d smile shyly, push the bottle toward me, and wave off my money like it was nothing.

She was petite, with a voice so soft you had to lean in to hear her, and eyes that seemed to linger just long enough to make me wonder if she was thinking something or just counting her stock. We never talked about anything deep, school and small gossip but somehow those short exchanges felt like the highlight of my visits. Standing there, sipping my free malt, I’d pretend it was casual, but inside I was wondering if she knew she was the other reason I came around so often.

Looking back now, I realise the barracks was a strange kind of university. Tunde taught me that paraga and philosophy are a dangerous mix, Salam taught me that a degree doesn’t guarantee productivity, Wale taught me never to learn driving from a man who thinks accidents are just “part of the process,” Rashida taught me that sometimes the best things in life really are free and John, dear Pastor Spinner, taught me that you can live in the middle of chaos and still keep your faith, your values, and your secrets. The barracks might have been noisy, smoky, and unpredictable, but it gave me enough stories to last a lifetime and one very firm rule: never accept driving lessons from a Paraga Boy.