NUJ’S OLD SCHOOL NIGHTLIFE
I wonder if parties really have time boundaries but the last end of the year old school party of the Lagos Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) was set for 5:00pm till 10pm.
I had issues arriving early at my wardrobe decisions since common-sense dictated that the dress code would be ol’school. I thought of ‘Oleku’ but I settled for an ankara-peplum top and denim skinny pants to suit my cross-over appeal instinct.
The traffic on Ikorodu Road was unprecedented. Having left Ijora at 4:00pm, I almost missed the much-anticipated party as I walked in at about 9:00pm. From the gate to the NUJ Secretariat at Alausa, Ikeja and indeed a few blocks away, I could hear some really cool sounds of the ‘80s.
Just as I took quick strides into the venue like a student who’s trying to get into a lecture room fast enough to be marked ‘present’, the song on the playlist changed and I almost thought the DJ had me in mind for playing Kool and the Gang’s ‘Fresh’.
But I doubt it because a lot of people were on the dance floor between the DJ and I and all I could make out visually at first were the Christmas colours of the back-drop and the psychedelic lights.
As I set my handbag on one of the empty seats around the dance floor, I received a friendly back slap. It landed on the bare portion of my deep-plunge low-back top and I made a conscious mental note to tell my seamstress not to let it be that low to avoid such slaps and similar activities.
I had to turn and identify the perpetrator and I realised it was a fair-skinned man who had a wig and dark shades on, like a superstar. Not still bemused by his astonishing attire, I kept staring until I finally recognised him: Nseobong.
“What! Oh my God, I almost didn’t recognise you,” I said excitedly. I was going to ask him why he took his wife’s wig but he shot a question faster than I could, “Do you like my wig? I was unsure of what to say because I was still recovering from the shock of seeing the editor in a costume situation. Cheerfully, I did the smartest evasive thing by responding with a question: ‘Where did you get it? I didn’t hear much of the answer he gave as the music drowned his voice and others’.
I took my camera and watched as many female steppers were clad in ‘buba and iro’ and the males donned natives too while rocking disco. It was fun and funny but there was no room for ridiculous laughter if your hands must be steady for good shots.
I decided to take Nseobong’s pictures because he was really a spectacle. Between James Brown and the Jeffrey Daniels, his pinstriped contemporary suit matched the NUJ’s ol’school theme.
Next, I ran into the Chairman, Deji Elumoye. But it didn’t take long before many bystanders made a spectacle of me and the big bottle I held in my hand which was incongruent with my little stature.
Back to Nseobong, I began to take an intellectual screening at the little drama he created. He pulled a female colleague out to the dance floor after asking nicely for her time. And so did another colleague who asked me, as well.
Who does that these days? Today, steppers bomb and grind wildly at parties with little or no respect for many females. That night, NUJ peeps returned to the old school culture of “excuse me dance” and restored decorum. The night ended with classics from Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey and I left the venue refreshed and in high spirits that were purely nonalcoholic.
At the party were the likes of Yemi Akintobi, former Internal Auditor, Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ) Lagos council, Waheed Odusile, Ex officio and Stella Sawyerr, Associate editor Tell Magazine, Fulani Olufemi, assistant director News, Radio Nigeria, Lagos Operation and Otunba Jide Adebayo, Executive director Lagos Operation News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Tunji Bakare, Deputy director, Information production, Lagos state ministry of Information and Strategy, Layinka Adagun, Director, Lagos Traffic Radio and Mr. Olisa Egbunike, Assistant Editor-in-Chief, NAN, Lagos.
This activity was scheduled for the previous yuletide but an unfortunate accident that led to loss of some journalists threw a dark cloud of mourning on the organised body of journalists. As promised by Elumoye, the party would become a regular year-end item on the calendar of the Lagos State Council of the NUJ henceforth. He explained that its aim is to create a forum for networking and leisure.