Did you hear the joke about the Nigerian woman going abroad for the first time to visit her son living there? On arrival at his house, she claimed it was missing something. Wondering what it could be, her son offered some suggestions. Was it in the kitchen? Or in the bathroom? Or perhaps in the bedrooms? Not any of those, she said. It’s the front of the house. It doesn’t have the usual notice scribbled on – ‘This house is not for sale’. Naija notices were, literally, the writing on the wall in my growing up years. There was hardly ever a time they weren’t part of living. If anything, new ones were created to increase the number. And over two decades later, some of them have remained robust, accompanied us into the 21st century and are almost grandparents to my children. The question is: do they still have the effects they had years ago (if yes, aren’t there other [read: better/more refined] ways to send out their various messages) or have they became so ingrained in our psyche over time that we think nothing of it as we (mindlessly/happily) scrawl away? Well, some are definitely embedded in mine and are constantly reinforced every time I see them: This house is not for sale This must be the oldest notice ever. Back then, there would be at least two or three houses with this statement boldly scrawled on the front part of the building. Sometimes it was right next to the house number and messing up the aesthetics (if any) of the house – paint, design and all. Now that I think of it, only unfenced houses bore this notice and if one was privy to the story behind it, the tale was never far from feuding siblings/relatives due to a dead patriarch and uneven distribution of assets in somebody’s opinion. Later on, it was either replaced with another – This house belongs to… – or an addendum appeared beside it for further clarification: Beware of 419. All thanks to the rise of the ’19 boys in the mid/late ‘90s”more
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