'Living in the Bar' By Adesina Ogunlana

Of course, I know you dear friend was called to the bar. But do you live in the bar? Mind you I didn’t say whether you lived by the bar or on the bar.
Living in the bar can be so exciting, you may not know. To live in the bar is to be an active member of the Nigerian Bar Association, who participates in the various programmes of the association either locally or nationally, even internationally.
Active members of the NBA are called barmen. They are so different from those who merely are lawyers but have little or no contact with the NBA, beyond a nodding acquaintance. Lawyers disinterested in bar activites are like those who have life, but not life more abundantly. Let me give you just a slice of the life in the bar.
On Wednesday 26th of November 2008, a company of Ikeja Tigers set off to Minna in their famous branded bus. They were seven Tigers and one Gecko-Tiger. Traveling by road especially over long distances can be fun, especially where you have wide leg space and you are not driven by a Jehu. Your condition is even made much more interesting by frequent access to repasts of all sorts.
When the Tigers finally arrived Minna, it was 12.00am. But they landed on the laps of a swinging party, made of other bar men from all over the country. That party did not effectively wound up until 4.00am. Of course at the said party much were the tears of Bacchus.
The next morning, the NBA, held her first National Executive Council Meeting under Rotimi Akeredolu SAN as president. As to be expected, when the NBA meets, sparks fly as arguments collide with counter arguments and intelligence swing against knowledge. But it was not only the attendees that created or contributed to the scintillating atmosphere of intellectual engagement.
Check out the M. B. Aliyu the Governor of Niger State. What a witty, profound analytical and erudite speaker! Bashing those Nigerians who claim that Islamic Education is the only worthwhile knowledge to have, the chief servant (that’s how the Niger Governor is officially addressed) declared that they couldn’t be right in the light of the admonition of the Prophet (Mohammed) that in the quest for knowledge, believers should even go to the city of sin (Beijing).
The Chief Servant capped his brilliant submissions and projections when he caused the Niger State Government to donate to the NBA purse, the sum of five million naira only. While the meeting was in progress after the exit of the Governor, a gecko was seen, leaving the meeting place to visit the aviary of the Hydro Hotel, the venue of the NEC meeting.
It was no big aviary and it had only two types of feathered fliers a tribe of geese and a couple of ostriches. It was my first time of seeing live Ostriches. What impressive birds. Those giant birds at full height could not be less than nine feet each and were so big that both could not have measured less than 400 kilogrames. Seeing them with my “korokoro” eyes quickened my understanding of the Bible verse that describes the bird as “the mighty Ostrich that laugh the horse and its rider to scorn”. Too big to be intimidated, I left the Ostriches well enough, to harass the geese. I created a particular squawking noise that got the geese agitated.
On Friday, we bade farewell to Minna. The departure took place in the afternoon and we headed for a town in Osun State. A tilapia (member of the NBA Lagos, a.k.a Lagos Branch) had the wonderful fortune of sharing part of the journey with us. Needless to say he was ribbed to pieces. The poor fish was taken to task why his Premier (soap) branch hardly uses her bus to-travel outside Lagos State. Then he was brutally reminded that given his youthfulness (just in his early forties) he would only become the chairman of his water-logged branch, ruled by gerontocrats, may perhaps in the next thirty years. The fish tried his marine best to counter the Tigers but then the odds understandably weighed too much against him-one tilapia in the (ambulatory) den of seven tigers!
Another guest of the Tigers who chose to travel with us from Minna, a female promissory note and a polygot to boot (when last did you meet an Igbo person who speaks Yoruba with a strong Ekiti accent flavour) was not so troubled. In fact how this post conference material was packaged into the tiger train still remained half a mystery.
When we reached Ilorin at about 8.00p.m, the Tilapia gratefully disembarked. The Tigers kept moving towards their destination in Osun State. About an hour later an unknown creature (I suspected a baby scorpion) deposited a penetrating sting into my behind while I was reeling from shock, bewilderment and pain, the other tigers were in various fits of mirthful amusement. There I was, disturbed, with pain holding an unconstitutional conference in my precious behind and worried at what actually stung or bit me and all the commiserations I could get from fellow Tigers went thus.
“Stop disturbing us my friend. No scorpion bit you, just a small ant and you are shaking like this?”
“Well, ‘they’ finally got you. Since you are proving too difficult for easy disbarment, they’ve now used a different method”.
“Let’s see whether G.O.K (Chief G.O.K Ajayi S.A.N) can bail you out of this?”
“Oh you man of little faith. Just turn your bum to me. I will only need to lay hands on it and the pain will go. But you must have faith o!
One of the Tigers, a leading Pentecostal pastor who managed to pray for me did so with a chuckle in his eyes and a twinkle in his throat. Respite finally came to me when we reached our destination. When the mother of our host heard of my travail, epa ijebu a potent local anti-venom was produced. I became quickly healed when the matriarch ordered for a “Buledi” to be fetched to make an incision on the sting-spot for the medicine to be applied.
I opted to oral and massage therapies and they worked wonderfully well. I fully recovered my joiue vivore in the face of hot amala and bush meat suffused egusi soup that was produced within minutes of our arrival.
The next day, a Saturday was another exciting day spent in company of many tigers and other lesser bar men. The adventures of that day in Ora and Oyan (where Joel Anwo, also a tiger saw off his late father with a befitting burial ceremony) towns will fill a small story book.
Tara! But when will you too start to live in the bar?