I have told you how terrible I felt after showing up on Richard Ogbage’s reggae programme, and how two of my senior colleagues, Thompson and Eugenia Abu, man and wife, pointedly told me to my face that I had no business being on that particular programme, pretending to speak patois. I have also told you about how embarrassed I was when my greatest fan, Ojukwu, pulled me by the ears from behind my chair, shouting my name at the top of his voice for all the world to hear at Culvert One, an open-air bar overlooking Ankpa Road, Makurdi.
None of these incidents came near the awful way I felt when Cordelia visited me one morning for the first and only time in the studios of Radio Benue, and caused havoc. She was a young Tiv girl, and till date I don’t know her surname. She was our neighbour, since she lived not far from the Radio Benue corpers’ lodge. She was a dark, comely girl in her early twenties, I guess, with apparent pleasant manners, a mischievous smile, a happy laugh, and a twinkle in her eye. She had heard this new male voice on the radio, and came under the urge to meet the fellow. From what she gathered, Nengi Lar was a corper living just across the next dusty road.
That was how Cordelia walked into our premises one day, and pointedly asked after me. Sam Obiago, Abubakar Mohammed, and I were home. Wendy and Soji had gone out. It was possible that Fidel Onyeneke, the corper before our set, was in his room. Cordelia did not hide the fact that she had her eyes on me. Her mission was clear. I looked like a guy she could proudly tout around town as her boyfriend. I looked like a potential husband even. She came to know my schedule of duty in entirety, from day to day, week after week. She knew when the bus came to pick me to work at dawn, and when I would return home. She knew what I did in between because she was listening to me all the way on the radio. She followed me up like a desperate class monitor.
To cut a long story short, we got chatting and became friends in the course of sharing a keg of burukutu, the local brew, on a jolly good evening when the air was filled with the seductive rhythms of swange and kpingi music. Cordelia had topped it up with pito, a more potent brew, and she was lavish with flirtations. Her favourite Hausa word was kwanangida, and I could only guess what it meant. One talk led to the other, and we found ourselves as close as close could be. Warm as the relationship was, I was not comfortable with it. I thought she was becoming too possessive, too forward, too brash for my liking. After a while, as may be expected, I began to withdraw consciously into my shell. Cordelia did not take that kindly, and she certainly did not help matters with her loud toxic swipes at me.
That morning, she felt she had endured enough of my cold shoulder. If I thought I could raise my shoulders at her just because I talk on the radio, I should think again. She could say far more than the entire volume of words I could ever utter on Radio Benue 2 FM Stereo in the course of a day’s broadcast. Who did I think I was? Who is Nengi Lar? She would prove to me that I could not just walk in and out of her life like an arrant trespasser bereft of conscience, and expect not to be challenged. As far as she was concerned, Cordy was not done with me yet. And if I would deny her, then she was right here at Radio Benue, no less, to shut down the station.
This was the line of her explanation to staff who came out of their offices to know what the commotion was all about. Cordelia’s tantrums possessed her so much that she began to upturn furniture at the reception before anyone knew what was happening, raving at the top of her voice, inebriated by whatever she might have imbibed that morning to fortify herself for this spectacular encounter, steeped in the heat of a woman scorned.
Everyone took turns to spell out to her that this was an office, and whatever differences she might have had at the homefront should stay far from damaging costly equipment at Radio Benue. A good number of her Tiv brethren, thankfully, came out to speak to her in a fervent idiom of condemnation, and Cordy was finally prevailed upon to ceasefire and leave in peace.
I was distracted throughout that day, and wondered what penalty would be spelt out to me. Management would definitely make a statement, I thought. But it turned out that they didn’t think it necessary. After all, I was just a corper, not a bonafide staff. And, come to think of it, my fan base was wide. It was not really my fault. All the advice I got was at the individual level, colleagues telling me to choose my friends carefully. Character, they insisted, counts more than good looks. If you get to meet a lady with character and beauty combined, stunning like Ruth Ahiaba, good for you.
Ruth, by the way, was the only staff who died while I was serving at Radio Benue. She was a producer in the AM station, an ebony black lady of average height with a face that could pass for a piece of excellent sculpture. To look upon her was to enjoy a serenity of spirit. To have her break out in a smile of bright dentures was to feel warm all over. We woke up one morning, and heard that Ruth Ahiaba, everybody’s respectable darling, was dead. It was as if a freezing shower had descended upon the naked shoulders of management and staff. The station played sultry songs of sorrow for the better part of that day, and gloom was to be seen wherever you turned. Even the trees under which she used to sit, overlooking the canteen, seemed to miss her, swaying as they did to a mournful, solemn tune only the whispering leaves could hear.
But I was telling you about Cordelia’s rampage at the station that morning. Some of my friends openly suggested that they would personally take it upon themselves to find me a decent Benue girl, be it from Tiv, Idoma or Igala as I choose, one who would certainly not set out to destroy valuable property at the radio house. In the end, I could only share in their amusement. But at the time it happened, it was not funny at all, and I still count that day as one of my lowest in Benue. Needless to say, that marked the end of my relationship with Cordelia.
