The phone

I pulled up the car and climbed out of the ac blast into the heat. It dragged my shoulders down, I could feel energy evaporating out of my body and escaping into the air, up and away into the eggshell blue sky. I’d been putting this off for over a week, and now there was no getting away from it. I locked the car and turned towards the line of touts who had begun to shuffle toward me.
All that time ago, back in Kano, some little scrotum stole my phone. I must have been standing almost within reach of the governor as the Emir made his way down the long red carpet under his sequinned umbrella. We’d pushed and shoved to get to the front, and I was trying to protect my pockets and take pictures. One hand was on my right side where my car key was, and the other hand was on my camera. I guess something had to give. Regular readers might remember I have a track record of having my pocket picked within spitting distance of important Nigerian leaders. It was only a matter of time before it happened again, I suppose.
And now, after too long, I’d eventually wound up the umph to deal with the modalities of re-acquiring my personal telephonic registration and availability-facilitating numeric sequence. I’d been ringing the customer service helpline for days trying to get hold of a human being to tell me how to get my number back, without avail. Every time I’d just get trapped in an infuriating loop of an automated message. It promised me I would get to speak to an operator but, when I pressed the button I was delivered back to the start, where the woman said in a bright perky faux-posh twang: “To hear this message in English press one.”
So I went down to the customer service department of the phone company and walked smartly up to the guard on the door. In front of me, a little chubby guy was looking very frustrated. He was waving papers at the guard and gesticulating. “Why can’t I reach the customer services on the phone? I have a complaint!” he said.
The guard gave a wet-lipped Buddha smile and said: “That’s because the customer services people want to listen to your complaint in person. Now please take a number and join the queue.” He pointed to the sunshades behind us where about 70 disgruntled people sat fanning themselves.
He pointed me over there too. I walked up to the seats and asked: “How now? How long have you all been waiting here?”
There was some grumbling. A weary, lean looking guy said: “I been here only ten minutes, but my friend, if you want it sharp sharp go speak to those small boys outside. They take you to another office where they know someone and you get it the same day. Here you pay 380, but there you give them a K. Here you have to wait three, four days, there you can use it the same day… That’s Nigeria for you.”
This last aphorism brought another man’s head round. “Eh! Why you go tell him ‘that’s Nigeria’ you give him a bad impression.”
The weary looking man rolled his eyes, as if to say “my friend you don’ craze”. A hefty argument was about to ensue. I hightailed it out of there.
I couldn’t face dealing with the touts that day, so I sacked it off and resolved to do it the next.
And there I was, standing before them as they ambled to me like a posse of gunfighters. I drew myself up to my full height. How much?
“Two thousand.”
“A-ah! You are a greedy man. I know it’s less than that. This greedy man wants two thousand,” I asked his friend “what do you say?” By public auction I hammered them down.
I took John, my chosen tout, to the other office. He’s been selling recharge cards for four years. “But I moved over to the welcome back because you can make money,” he said. Of the one K I was to give him, he would take 600 and pay the “inside man” 400. There were scores of other guys in the shop with stacks of welcome packs. Other customers gave me a knowing glance as John handed me my life back.
But I'd realised that I didn't need this guy. I could have just come up to the office myself and queued. But in Nigeria information is so badly dispersed that it becomes as valuable as money. Not many people know about the phone company's Wuse Zone 5 office at the moment, so the touts exploit that and charge people who want their phone numbers back "sharp sharp", and don't mind paying extra. Its a precarious way of making money, but one that requires little education and no start up cost.