How I was Robbed Inside a Bank in Warri.

For all I can remember up till this moment, Friday

May 25th, 2018 was a usual day. A usual day in the sense that I woke up at the usual time, did the morning rituals as usual and set out to work on the first plan of the day which was to visit a bank in Warri from my house, a suburb of Ughelli, Delta state. As I left my house, I did not have the faintest idea that my visit to bank would make that day a very, very unusual day where I would be robbed of my... The robbery happened thus: I entered this bank and saw a sea of people in the banking hall jostling to form a queue. I joined them and soon, a queue was hurriedly formed.

All I knew then was that two (beautiful) girls were behind me. Let me quickly mention here that I just left NYSC orientation camp in Delta state some days earlier, so I put on my NYSC cap. Minutes later, a tall, dark and unsmiling bank official approached the queue and said, 'stay orderly, this is a bank'. One of the girls quickly retorted that we too were organised set of people, that the disorder in the queue was beacuse we were tired of standing on the queue and we were really impatient to be attended to by the cashiers. I was tired of standing too, so I supported her retort by uttering some sentences.

If I had known she would eventually rob me, I would not have 'poke nose'. She quickly tapped me and said in Pidgin ' Corper, I no too like that man, he too dey talk anyhow'. To show my support again in her opinion of the man, I replied to her in the little Pidgin I had learnt in Ibadan that ' he no dey shine his face, are we mumu persons?' That was all I said that made her to start speaking Warri Pidgin in thousands. Every word flowed from her mouth with charming ease. She really stunned me that I was speechless. I had never seen a speaker of flawless Pidgin before in my life. Because I had lived all my life in South West where Pidgin was and is still a third choice language.

She was so dazzlingly ruthless in her speech that she robbed me of my precious speech mechanism, intelligence and emotions. I was rooted to the spot and started looking at her in extreme awe. The only thing she did not rob me of was the money I wanted to deposit in the bank. The English that I used four years to study in school? I couldn't speak it again. The little Pidgin I had learnt in Ibadan? gone! I could only manage to nod faintly in affirmation of her opinions and hiss to show my disgust to the man's misdemeanours as she said of him. I prayed silently that this evil should hurriedly end. The queue was not moving yet she kept robbing me. Eventually, I had to leave the bank without making the deposit. I had never been in such demeaning circumstance before. Even if I could not speak Pidgin, English would never be lost. But here in Warri...

Since that day, I have been guarding myself not to 'poke nose' again anytime I see a Warri babe around. I can not again afford to lose my intelligence to any rampaging Warri Pidgin. It is almost a year now that this robbery happened, its effect just left me today. That is why I have been able to write this story which I titled ' How I was Robbed Inside a Bank in Warri'.

Truly, Warri no dey carry last!

Taiwo-Olaniyi Ogunlade

March 8th, 2019.