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The iron horse
features significantly in Igbo narratives, connecting with notions of
wealth, poverty, power, modernity, security, and interpersonal
relationships in a changing society. Transliterated from the Igbo
“anyinya igwe” (for the English word “bicycle”), iron horse represents
a people’s perception of the convergence of the familiar and the
unfamiliar, the natural and the invented Indeed, as a signifier, its
meanings keep shifting. For instance, while owning an iron horse was an
indication of great wealth and being in tune with modernity (or
culturally being with the oyibo), having it instead of a car in the
modern Igbo society is viewed as a sign of abject poverty. Little
wonder that the Mobylette, with its combination of the features of the
iron horse and the conventional motorcycle, was nicknamed “M zuru m ike
igwe” (May I take a rest from bicycle riding). Is it not astonishing
that one who also wants to take a rest from car driving in contemporary
Nigerian society and decides to ride an iron horse to church or work
becomes an object of ridicule? How so soon we forget!

The iron horse once
mattered. It was class, especially if it was the brand called “White
Horse”. Ride a White horse and the whole village would bow. In those
days, a suitor wishing to impress would look for someone in his village
who had a White Horse and beg him with some drinks to accompany him to
see his in-laws. That was a strategic impression management. As the
Igbo would say: “O gbajuo n’elu, o rute ndi no n’ala” (when the wine
keg fills to the brim up there, the wine will surely trickle down to
those below).

The owner of an
iron horse might not know how to ride it. The most important thing was
that he possessed an iron horse. Sometimes he would dress up for a
ceremony and since the iron horse must accompany him to boost his
image, he would roll it all the way to where he was going; or,
alternatively, someone would have to roll it behind him. And when he
eventually learned how to ride it, someone would always have to hold
the metal animal while he mounted.

It was part of the
homage to both the beast and its powerful rider. If wishes were iron
horses, those that held them for others to mount might ride! Well, it
seemed that when poor villagers were eventually able to buy their own
iron horse, its integrity suffered. Perhaps, this entry of the poor
into the circle of iron horse riders led to the introduction of a
bicycle license. If the poor must join in riding, they must regularly
pay for doing so.

The local council
had special license officials deployed like today’s police on the
roads. As would be expected, the local people needed to be wary if
their iron horse licenses had expired. An iron horse license official
could spoil someone’s journey by mounting a roadblock where it was not
expected.

Trust people in my
village for being their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers: those who
successfully passed iron horse license checkpoints always tried to
alert others that “onye akika agba” (literally, a person that carved up
someone’s jowl) was somewhere around the bend.

It was considered a
calamity to lose one’s iron horse to thieves. Even as the poor and the
nonliterate wanted to progress to by climbing out of poverty onto the
saddle of wealth, they also had to wrestle with the prevailing
structures of power, criminality, injustice, and a Eurocentric justice
system.

Seven Seven,
popularly known among his Igbo fans as “Okonkwo Asaa,” will always be
remembered for his musical narrative about Long John and his iron
horse. Long John in Okonkwo Asaa’s story is a stark illiterate who,
desiring to enjoy the things of modern technology and also to reduce
the suffering occasioned by trekking, decides to purchase an iron
horse. In his innocence, he fails to ask the seller for a receipt,
little knowing that the seller, like many dubious business people, is
determined to show him, a mumu, that “Na guy wack.” The seller raises
an alarm after Long John has paid and departed with the iron horse,
claiming that someone has stolen an iron horse from his shop. Long John
is arrested by the police and being unable to produce either the
receipt of the purchase or a witness, is detained. But he would not
give up: as a firm believer in tradition and poetic justice, he invites
the road, the mango tree on the road, as well as his ancestors, to be
his witnesses, with the police mocking and scolding him for being out
of tune with modern ways of justice.

The seller begins
the trip back to his shop with the recovered iron horse, rejoicing that
he has demonstrated astute business intelligence. But, either out of
recklessness occasioned by the excitement over his cleverness or the
quick intervention of the witnesses summoned by Long John, the iron
horse dealer is knocked down by a car and he dies instantly. The
bicycle falls beside the mango tree mentioned by Long John as one of
his witnesses. The police officers are so shocked and terrified at the
turn of events that they quickly release Long John and hand over the
iron horse to him.

Like Long John, I am back on my iron horse, riding to work in a
postcolonial Nigerian society where one has to construct one’s
importance and travel to power using a “special” vehicle.