Telephone conversation

Wole Soyinka seemed to have foreseen our telephone manners long before mobile telephony became the norm in Nigeria. With his iconic poem “Telephone Conversation”, he captured for the world and posterity how we telephone, how we converse on the device invented by Bell in 1876.

I have inherited burdens by just listening to a conversation that has nothing to do with me. This is because the user of the mobile phone insists by his/her loud voice and gesticulation that I must be part of his family challenges.

One day I was sure that I was meant to know Chika from another life. I was sitting in the outer office of a clinic when a woman broke into the Chika story. Here is the conversation.

“So why is Mike behaving like that, eh? If it is because he bought you a car, it’s not an excuse for him to be disrespectful. I think you should let him go.”

Then there was silence. I deduced that Chika was relating her side of the story. Then the lady dressed like a doll could not take it anymore, so she stood up and paced up and down the waiting room and then stepped outside the door. I was alone in the waiting room and just wanted my peace and quiet. I could still hear her from outside arguing with Chika. Mike was in deep trouble.

“I think you should leave him…No he cannot ask for the car back. Were you not living with him at one time, cooking, cleaning and even servicing him?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I am telling you he is an idiot. You have paid your dues. You cannot give him back the car.”

Then she walked into the waiting room. She looked me in the eye to ascertain whether I had heard her conversation. I chuckled inside of me as she was very loud. Her private life and that of Chika on the street for all to hear! Then her phone rang, one of those Chinese rings that irritate you – crude and annoying.

“Hello, Ehen Chika. Sorry my credit finished. You see I am your mother. I said you should leave this Mike. I have been telling you of this boy Ray. Think about him, he really likes you.”

This woman who is all dolled up in funny clothes is actually Chika’s mum. Why could she not wait until she got home to carry on her private conversation? Why should I be bothered with a soap opera, with a raging fever and a book I desperately wanted to finish? Mama Chika had ruined my morning. All I could say as she entered Part 2 of the Nollywood flick was, “Could you keep your voice down please?” She gave me a nasty eye and left the room, the Chika conversation continuing even louder outside the door.

This is how we telephone, wasting hard-earned phone credits on conversations that ought to be face to face. Seriously, mobile phone conversations are meant for instructions, emergencies and short conversations. When it becomes a novel, you should wait until you see the person except it’s absolutely important or distance will not permit. Private conversations are exactly what they are and should not be publicised.

Only yesterday, I flew into Lagos in the company of my fellow passengers and a lawyer who sat in front of me gave me a complete booklet of his briefs, who he had succeeded in getting off the hook, which of his clients had won a case and which ones had been unsuccessful. I was gobsmacked. No sir, this is not how to be. These are private official information which I was not expected to be part of. But he carried on long into the preparation for take-off even after the airline crew had asked us to switch off our phones. I peeped from behind him to see his signature and he was a SAN. He stopped only when the plane started to taxi, by which time he had ruined the air hostesses’ instructions about safety for all of us.

I have never understood why some Nigerians, some highly placed ones, must break laws to prove that they are important, or even ordinary Nigerians who cannot keep simple rules. Oga/madam, switch off your phone. How hard can that be? On international flights I have watched cabin crew walk up to several of my countrymen/women to say, “Please put your phone away, sir/madam.” It is embarrassing. There was a two-hour wait at the airport before boarding. What conversation could you not conclude? After boarding at best you alert a family member that you are about to take off and then switch off your phone.

These last-minute conversations, by the way, include things like, “Please ask Mary to switch off the A/C in my room, I think I forgot to put it off”, OR “I just boarded. Aah, I am in business class, I got it this time.” Really? Oga, please switch off your phone. And Mama Chika, no, I don’t want to hear your family problem. I am battling with mine.