Hush Hush

You see in an average Nigerian home there’s always this hush hush policy. Don’t say more than you are asked to outsiders. By outsiders I mean your cousins, Aunties, Uncles e.t.c. For me the hush hush policy is something I grew up with so it was no shock when I was about to leave the country I was asked not to tell anyone until I had left. Admission, Visa, Travel…..everything was done with the hush hush policy until I had left the country especially with my extended family. My close friends of course knew I was leaving I even did count down with them but most of my relatives had no clue. Hush hush policy. 

I didn’t know why but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk telling everybody against my parents’ orders then have African magic happen to me. Have you ever watched one of those movies where something big is about to happen to somebody then he tells everyone and then one of his relative does something fetish and everything comes crumbling? Yes, that one. I was not going to risk that happening to me.

Also at that period, my favorite cousin was sick. Her name was Chigozie. I used to call her Chigo. She knew I had traveled and she would call me from her sick bed once in a while to check up on me. She was a sweet soul and she genuinely loved me.  She was one of the few if not the only that actually gave a fuck about me and my siblings. She was also the only one that visits and let me visit her in her school.  

I remember growing up with her and during her visits we would both play different games. My favorite was the one where she would pretend to be a superstar and I would be a TV presenter who interviews her and also the one were she would act out my movie scenes. She was an aspiring actress and I have always loved writing so I would write out scenes for her to act and even though she was older than me she would let me correct her acting. I was like the director and scriptwriter. Just me, Chigo and my bedroom made movies. We were all we needed.

I traveled back to Nigeria for summer break 6 months later and what can I say, I spent the holiday chasing boys, getting my heart broken and traveling in and out of Abuja visiting my best friends and living the hush hush policy. I had to stay away from the village and keep my stay quiet and hurry back to school so no one can tie me down in Nigeria. Right now it sounds all confusing but except you know this policy very well you might not understand it. I don’t even think I understand it. But anyways, I hushed my way through the holiday and started making plans to travel back to school without going to the village. I just expected she would be fine you know. She had all my Aunties, Uncles and my grandma there, plenty relatives suggesting treatments and remedies. I thought she had everyone she needed.  Everyone I wasn’t supposed to show myself to so they won’t know I was in the country. And I was so scared. I was very scared of anything happening to me. I stayed away from the village.

Before my departure, I traveled to Enugu to visit one of my best friends Mary and even though it was now a two-hour drive to go see my cousin, I took the 8-hour drive back to Abuja telling myself next time. Next time! 

A day or two after I got back to Abuja, my mum got a call that Chigo had passed on. She didn’t wait for my next time. She died. She died. Cause of sickness still a mystery to everyone but hush hush policy demands that when there’s a mystery you run and I did. I ran so well that I never got to say goodbye. This month of September makes it two years since Chigo passed on and I really wish I can ever tell her how sorry I am that I never visited. I am sorry that she died probably thinking am one of the people who deserted her in her sickness.

Chigo, I was just scared.

For those of you that know about the hush hush policy in Nigerian homes, who do you think is to blame? Do you think our parents are just overly paranoid and no one is out to hurt us from the village or you blame those villagers who won’t just let us play around and eat around without the fear of being poisoned or being trailed with fetish powers? 

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