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As kids, a musician
named Marvel from Uromi town used to torment us. Marvel enjoyed the
monopoly of being the only highlife musician around. News of a
performance by Marvel would spread like fire on dry grass. Boys would
be scrambling to tailor’s shop to sew new outfits and treetop Afros
would spring from girls’ heads. The news of an upcoming Marvel concert
could whip the eight villages that make my clan into a whirlwind of
euphoric anxiety.

“Marvel go come
so?” We would ask, seeking support and reassurance from one another
because it was not unusual for him to take advance payment and go to a
more profitable venue like the burial ceremony of a wealthy patron’s
mother. On several disappointing occasions like that we would sulk to
bed dreaming of the aborted fiesta in our sullen sleep.

After we had
thoroughly stewed in our anticipation, the same way we waited for
politicians to redeem their promises of pipe borne water, electricity,
good roads, and had our hopes dashed like eggs carried by a leper,
Marvel would magically show up with his band members in a beat up
Peugeot 404 pickup.

This motor was a
combination of hard jagged metal and wires on wheels, a relic that
belonged more to the Museum of Natural History if Nigeria had one. Then
again, Marvel’s pijoti was built for the unpaved deadly roads to my
village. The driver would blast his horn and rev the engine that
emitted black smoke into the air to announce Marvel’s arrival. We would
let out ear shattering screams, jumping up and down – “Marvel vale,
Marvel vale, Marvel vale! Marvel has arrived!”

Marvel would remain
inside the pickup, wearing dark sunglasses like Ray Charles
nonchalantly smoking a Gold Leaf cigarette, while his boys unloaded the
musical equipment.

Catching a glimpse
of his weathered, battered, red guitar was like seeing Jesus Christ
walking on the River Niger from Asaba to Onitsha.

Speakers and
keyboards and drums and the most taunting instrument, the microphone,
would be unloaded by men with cigarettes hanging from their quivering
lips. Then the pickup door would open, and Marvel would gingerly test
his steel-toed stiletto shoes on the red earth, before heaving himself
out, slowly. Standing up full length, you would think Elvis Presley had
risen, except Marvel was as black as Idi Amin. He never smiled; he
would just walk straight to a cool-off area reserved for him by his
host, downing bottles of hot Crystal lager beer, until his men finished
setting up.

At about 8pm, the
atmosphere would be aromatically frothing like fresh palm wine. If the
clouds were kind, we would have moonlight, otherwise fireflies provided
enough illumination to help us wander round the venue. The only
electricity lights were a few bulbs powered by Marvel’s small Yamaha
generator, whose sole purpose was to run the musical equipment. In any
case, light was not required, for at Marvel’s highlife party, things
not meant for illumination usually took place.

By now the band would have finished setting up the equipment, plucking at their guitars (not Marvel’s) in tuneless succession.

There were only two
microphones, one for Marvel and one to be shared by three backup
singers. There was no proliferation of microphones back then, it seemed
you had to earn the right to use one because other band members just
bellowed away with their God given throats.

With a bulb
dangling above his head in the shaded area, Marvel would strap his
guitar round his shoulder and adjust the belt a couple of times, all
this while a cigarette would be hanging from his lips tremulously.
Eventually, he would pull a long drag on the Gold Leaf and drop it
disdainfully, grinding the butt viciously with his stiletto. Grabbing
the microphone, the very first words that would come out of his mouth
would be “Testing Microphone…one, two…testing
microphone…one-two.”

While we waited for
the real show to start so we could gyrate in the corner because we were
not old enough to hold girls by their waists and grind the night away
in the middle of the dance floor, Marvel would continue to test the
microphone for an eternity. He would fiddle with knobs in the old
amplifiers and twang his guitar endlessly. At some point, we would have
fallen asleep on benches in the fringes. Earlier excitement would have
worn our young minds out by the time Marvel was done with “testing
microphone”.

We did not know the extent to which this endless testing annoyed grownups, until one night.

Agoslow, a man
whose head was the size of cinder block, walked straight to Marvel,
seized the microphone from him and cleared his throat: “The microphone
is working, play me music and let me dance and enjoy myself, I come
from a far village.”

And today as I wait
for Goodluck Jonathan to declare his intention and he is still dilly
dallying and meeting with the Buharis of this world, the immortal words
of Agoslow come to me. So I am telling Mr. President to stop testing
the microphone and declare his intention and let the dance begin in
earnest.

Enough of this waiting game.