There’s a fairy in my BRT
By Sobowale Oluwadarasimi
If anybody beats their chest and tells you with bulging eyes that fairies don’t exist in Lagos, throw your head back in an exaggerated, humiliating laughter and tell them that they’ve clearly never seen Omoshalewa at 3 a.m. near Tejuosho market.
You see, by day, Omoshalewa was just another university student, with obviously ridiculous dreams, and was every mother’s prayer point: well-behaved (on paper), quiet (during exams), and sharp (especially when it came to spotting who was about to vomit surprise test). She knew how to greet elders, use thank-you to dodge chores, and disappear during compound meetings. She minded her business, passed her exams, and only fought when someone touched her meat.
But when Lagos slept, Omoshalewa removed her wig, rolled up her skirt, tied her wrapper tight, and became who she truly was: the Fairy Queen of Ojuelegba. You would call it witch, but this is my story and I will call her a fairy if I so dare.
Now, I warn you, forget what you know about fairies. Because Omoshalewa didn’t sprinkle glitter or wave a wand. Please. This was Lagos.
Her wings were made of aso-oke laced with reflectors so that okadas wouldn’t jam her at night. Her power pouch contained chin chin alata sweswe, dry gin and rechargeable torchlight. Her staff of strength was a long wooden spoon with a slight bend, and she had borrowed from her mother’s kitchen. And when she flew, it was, you see, far from elegant, it was one-knee-up, wrapper-flying, ehn-ehn-shey-you-see-me-now kind of flight.
It all began the night she reversed someone's N4,300 POS transaction from a shady “POS & Shawarma” stand that had neither shawarma nor receipt. The woman screamed, “Holy Ghost fire!” as the alert came back. She thought it was angelic intervention. But it was just Omoshalewa, crouched on top of the signboard like a hawk in Iya Sikira’s market, clicking her tongue and whispering incantations that sounded suspiciously like: “Backspace, Backspace, Control Z, enter. God abeg run am back.”
She became a silent helper of Lagos. Nobody saw her, but Lagos began to notice. People reported small miracles:
“NEPA brought light and didn’t take it for 12 hours!”
“My child stopped bed-wetting.”
“An okada man actually said sorry when he splashed me.”
They said an angel was among them. But me and you know sha that It was not an angel. It was sisi `Omoshalewa.
But the event that shook Lagos came the night of the National JAMB Crash.
Because one night, Omoshalewa made a mistake.
Now, this was not a planned miracle. Sisi Omoshalewa had simply gone to sprinkle “brain dust” on three teenagers near Ojota who were preparing for their mock exam. The idea was to help them sleep peacefully, and maybe, just maybe, try to understand calculus better in their dreams.
But really, Omoshalewa is just a girl. And God forbid a girl wants to do too much one day.
She sprinkled just one more “agolo” of brain dust. It was just one more o, but ‘one more’ was simply too much.
By the time she woke the next morning, JAMB's entire result server had crashed. In fact, three students in her neighborhood had reportedly scored 400 over 400.
Twitter was on fire. News blogs were shouting: “JAMB Collapse: Divine Intervention or Hacking?” Aunties on WhatsApp groups began praying: “Oh Lord, let my child too receive accidental brilliance.”
But Omoshalewa knew. We sef knew.
She locked herself inside all day, and made herself chew raw rodo while she watched the news so that she wouldn’t make that mistake next time. She rewarded herself with dry corn later, though. She is, like has been established, just a girl.
That night, she went out with her wrapper tied extra tight, ready to fix her mess. But she couldn’t. The ripple had spread too far.
For weeks, she disappeared.
Lagos cried.
But then, one Monday morning, every Lagos BRT bus gave passengers their exact change. To the kobo. Market women screamed. A conductor fell to his knees. Someone wrote on a wall in Surulere:
“OMOFAIRY, THANK YOU FOR 50 NAIRA BALANCE. NEVER LEAVE US AGAIN.”
She didn’t reply. But from above, nestled between telecom masts and satellite dishes, was Omosalewa smiling with dry corn between her teeth.
And so, every night, between the sound of horn and generator, the flapping of wrapper in the wind might mean she’s near.
So, you see ehn, it’s not all fairies that wear tutus.
Some wear gele, carry bagco sacks, and fix Nigeria one POS reversal at a time.
Now, I know that my story may have made you scoff and roll your eyes, but my own is that if Disney can have Tinkerbell and Rosetta and Peter Pan, I don’t see why our sisi Omoshalewa should be such a big deal.
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