ADDY'S ABUJA TRIP -- PART 1

Pressure Cooker Plane, Nigeria Music Award, Juvy Runs etc

It would be an understatement to say my first trip to Abuja was JUST an interesting experience. First of all I thank God I am able to write this blog because the trip sapped out all my energy and Lord know what would have been the headlines had things gone according to plans. Despite all the comedies of error it was so much fun and filled with silliness. So what do you want me to start with? The sizzling (no pun intended) drama or the highly irresponsible juvenile aspect. Oh boy....am I gonna get implicated in some queries or what? Ok well I’ll start from the beginning as I remember it all. Keeping in mind that some portions of the story remain a blur (I’m killing it with the puns) to me.

THE DREAM
So on Monday I had a dream that I could not put a finger on. I was in a plane and the plane was in distress. The tail of the plane was blue with the logo CAL and then ADC. This didn’t make any sense to me because at the time I was not planning on going anywhere. So I said a quick prayer, went back to sleep and disregarded it. Then on Tuesday evening I bumped into a co-worker and he mentioned the trip to Abuja for the Nigerian Music awards and I was like ‘Awww….I wanna go too,’ considering the fact that I had the weekend off and would probably have ended up no place else other that the great and infamous 6 degrees North At Bacchus. I always want to call it BC 360 after my favorite show on CNN, AC360. How cheesy. Anyways, my co-worker said he’ll get back to me Wednesday when things would be finalized and let me know if he got a slot for me. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to happen because I really didn’t have to be there. The only excuse I was trying to use to get a ticket was that I was going to chaperone the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria and Mr. Nigeria (in reality I probably was the one who needed chaperoning). So I totally forgot about it, may have sent a text or an email as a reminder but by the close of workday Thursday I had totally forgotten about it and made plans for the weekend with anther co-worker. But on Thursday night around 11.30 p.m’ish I get a call. “Adaure I got you on the flight, be at the airport at noon at the ChanChangi counter for the 1pm flight.” DA HELL!!! Not that damn airline!! Remember my last ordeal with them? Yeah… My heart sank. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cop out or ask what happened to the Virgin Atlantic flight. I was also very sleepy as I had to wake up at 4am the next morning to go to work. So I call one of the youth corper who works with me to let her know that I would not be at work and that I am going to Abuja. She suggested I pack right then, but darn it, I needed to sleep. So I set my alarm for 3am instead. I wake up, pack, go to work and was done by 10.30am. Apparently there were 9 of us from the company going to this event; the entertainment crew, radio reporter, protocol, the king and queen and then me. Isis, the presenter for Entertainment Weekly calls me and is like, ‘Oh my Gawd, my tailor totally messed up, my dress is not ready, please help me pick up another dress in Ikoyi at Teema Towers.” I am like ok it is 10.30 so I am sure I can spare 30 mins to get the dress. Little did I know. Traffic from Lekki to Victoria Island was heavy and by the time I got to Ikoyi it was already 11.15. I looked around for the place to no avail. None of those mallam-maigadi gate men and okada riders seemed to know where this place was. As in how can you be a security guard and you don’t know where certain places are in your neighborhood.

Anyways I eventually left Ikoyi and tried to get to the airport. I knew I was not going to make it there by noon but I was shooting for 12.15. We were doing 120 kilometers per hour on Third Mainland Bridge only to hit traffic in Gbagada. We tried to cut off at Anthony Village but upon getting to Oshodi we hit another road block. We eventually make it to Ikeja, yet another bumper to bumper traffic on Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way. How about I got to the airport at 1.15pm because for some odd reason there was some serious traffic all over Lagos. If this had been a Virgin Atlantic flight I probably would have missed it. Isis meanwhile lives in Ikeja and trying to do the ‘I live near the airport’ Diva moves, leaves her house around 12.15 pm. She got to the airport around 1.45pm. Well the good thing was that the plane was still on the ground and people were still ‘strutting’ in. You know how it is with ‘these celebs’. They like to take their sweet time. And of course we waited forever…forever, ever, for ever ever.