ADDY'S FIRST ABUJA TRIP -- PART 3

NIGERIA MUSIC AWARDS AND THE JUVY RUNS

All I can say is Wow. Well may be those who were not juvenile and irresponsible like I and Isis would have something different to say. Anyways the show started at 11.45pm instead of 8pm. Apparently, the President and his P-D-P cronies were having their last retreat in the Obasanjo administration and stayed at the Convention center for ever. I ended up wearing my ‘Yellow BCBG dress’ from last summer that I had packed just incase. I know, Faux pas, but I was not going to pay N800 to Le Meridien to get my other dress ironed. We raced through the red carpet portion. I hate those. We found our people and got seated. Isis went to work. By the time we got to the 3rd award, after a VERY long BORING skit by Ramota and Chief Zebrudaya, Addy was half asleep. Isis got back and we agreed that we definitely had to gerrouta there. At this point I shall plead the 5th and stick by our story, which is we were just going to the bathroom and would be outside in the car thereafter getting some fresh air. I mean we had to make up for 45 minutes of no oxygen. We came back on time to see Tuface pick his Song of the Decade award. By now it was like 3am. Isis finished up and we all hit town once more. By now I was tired and decided to turn in shortly after that at around 4.30am.

ABUJA OF NO PURE WATER SACS

This is the cleanest place I have ever been to in Nigeria. Not a single pure water sac or seller, no hawkers, NO OKADA riders, no traffic, no yellow buses, no loud speakers blaring Fuji music, there were more trees than houses, more hills than high rises and clean air. Now I see what Singto had been raving about. In fact I want to move. I hate Lagos now. Hmh... With the new administration coming in and everyone jockeying for positions and stuff, may be I need to go to a street corner in Maitama or the gate of Aso Rock with a sign that reads ‘Hire Me.’ Lol. It is that serious. May be when Silverbird completes its new multiplex cinema in Abuja I will lobby my way up north. Or better yet SINGTO find a job in Abuja so that I can come and visit you every other weekend. We can have the best of both worlds. Gosh why can’t Lagos be half like Abuja? Is there anyone in the Action Congress in Lagos that can be like El Rufai whom Fashola can appoint to bring Lagos out of the trenches? And with a new president, will that mean they would release more funds to Lagos because as I understand it Baba and Tinubu are like oil and water and hence federal funding was not coming fast. I mean should Lagos not be treated and run like a country? Anyways I am sure I’ll be back in Abuja sooner that you can say Jack Robinson. If you haven’t been make sure you make an effort on your next trip to Nigeria. It is just something different from the craziness of the likes of Lagos, Benin and Port Harcourt. I mean it was so pinching me that on my return flight I looked out the window as we flew over Lagos. When I saw the shanty buildings, smking dumpsites, yellow buses and traffic, my heart sank and I was like "WHAT DA HELL IS DIS?" Hopefully I'll be back for the inauguration but I hear the place will not be for the meek.

LEAVING ABUJA AND MEETING ADONIS
Sunday came around and it was time to go. The others in the crew were not doing anything special so I decided to accept a friend’s invitation to breakfast at the Hilton. I left my suitcase with ‘protocol’ and told him that I would meet the crew at the airport. Protocol had gone ahead and gotten us all tickets on Aero Contractor. I was meant to be at the airport at 1pm to make it for the 2pm flight. I am enjoying breakfast and the conversation and didn’t realize when it was 12.30pm. My friend now calls the driver, who takes his sweet time to arrive and I leave at 12.45pm. Now the airport is a good 30 minutes away and considering I had already irritated protocol the night before, I was all like ‘OMG they’ll never take me anywhere, ever again.’ Isis sends me the first text, ‘Dude, where u at…I’m 10 minutes out, please stall for me….Adaure, where are you? They’ve left me here and gone inside….I am at the Virgin Counter but I don’t see you…. Gurl it is Aero come back around to the domestic side.”

I finally get there and I put on my sunglasses to hide my face, because my stunt had been a bit to diva-ish and my behind could have been left in Abuja in a heart beat. I check in by 1.30 and go into the waiting area. Eventually everyone relaxed and we were all back to having our conversation. Then ADONIS WALKS BY……. Addy’s cute guy radar antenna goes beep beep. I try to find Isis to radio toe cute-guy alert but she was not getting my signal. We then start boarding and I totally forget about Adonis because I was thinking, this dude just strolled in at like 2pm so he was not likely on my flight. Boy was I sooo wrong. When we were at the bottom of the stairs, there he was at the top, chest all cut ‘kush-kush’ like Johnny Bravo, muscles like Pop-Eye and a smile like John Smith. I alert Isis and another friend for their appraisal and approval. We all agreed he was a major piece of hotness. We get on the plane and he gets up from his seat and we are all scoping. I am trying so hard to avoid his eyes because the grin on my face was just too wide. Anyways this is where the other juvenile story comes in. Gosh, when am I gonna grow up man….27 and still behaving like a giddy 15, not even 17 year old. It can be cute sometimes but even I am beginning to get irritated by myself. Lol. Anyways through out the flight we were all contemplating how we’ld get my note from our seat 14 E to his seat 17 E inviting him to lunch. It was like Rocket Science ya’ll. I can hear some of you saying oh that’s so desperate… I know. But you have to chuck the pride sometimes, be bold and just do it like NIKE. So I try to get the attention of the air hostess, at least she would understand the need to not let this opportunity pass by. But why did the Air host answer instead. Now considering he is an African man and I am an African woman, I am not sure the host would have been pleased to be passing the note across for us. So we decide that we need to come up with another plan. So I am like hey why don’t I write his seat number and ‘pass it on’. I forgot that not every Nigerian went to a school where ‘pass it on’ was the norm, or even knew what it was. The note finally got to 17 E not before everybody on the plane knew that we were passing a note. I am telling you we were laughing so hard that tears started running down our eyes. The guys sitting next to ‘Adonis’ also got to read the note and were laughing and looking to see who was the ‘lady in pink’. LOL. I guess they were tripped we actually passed the note.

Moments later, I get a text message. HA!!! MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ACCOMPLISHED. Then when the plane stopped, Isis starts playing ‘Summer Nights’ from the Grease soundtrack and we kept laughing really laughing hard. It was my best flight in ages. Meanwhile protocol highly irritated by our typical high school chicks’ antics left us and went on the first bus. But Mr. Nigeria was gentleman enough to wait for us. We get our luggage only to find out that LASTMA had towed our protocol bus. LOL. Isis ended up taking us home. Turns out, Adonis is from Israel. Dejavu all over again. Israeli dudes must be really cute because the last dude I pulled that ‘pass it on’ stunt just last month on was from Israel as well. I am going to have to retire that M.O and find something else. Turns out that dude was a hardliner and started railing on the Palestinian and talking about how he used to be in the IDF and how Palestinians are this and that. I was like well after talking with my Palestinian friends in college, I can under stand where they are coming from and while I respect your views and opinion I’d have to say it’s probably only adding o the reason there’s no peace in the Middle East. It only recently occurred to me that could possibly be the reason I ain’t heard from the hommie after that. Ha!ha!!ha.!!! Such a trip. His loss and good riddance because I got a bit scared about his ‘previous job description’ YIKES!!. But back to Adonis, he was like he had spotted me at the airport (my laughter was carrying…just a bit loud) but he didn’t know how to come up to me because I was with my friends. Hmh...BS or not? Anyways he was like thanks for the note and blah blah blah blah blah. We’ll see what happens but ya’ll know what they say about black girls and Jewish boys. Uh Hmh!!

Meanwhile it's Wednesday and I am surprised I have not seen the story of our ordeal in the papers yet considering a number of press people were onboard. I am surprised PUNCH, whose staff also nearly fainted did not report it yet(may be it was buried in the business section). I am counting on City People not to disappoint in their May 29 edition. Hopefully they will not make it one of their 'fluff-stuff' stories and really indict and call out Chanchangi for their BS. Unfortunately this is Nigeria law suits are mere formalities and media bashing and bombardment is usually what gets the best result. However the truth is that news editors get paid off not to run stories and if we continue allowing these people get away with it, people will continue dying.