I am tired of seeing penises in Lagos.
It seems everywhere you look there’s a penis hanging out passing or shaking off the last drops of urine.
What is this nonsense?
I do not understand how we came to be like this in a country where “do not urinate here” signs are more ubiquitous than our coat of arms.
Ok, we were all living in our villages before urban towns sprang up and people began to build houses without bathrooms and toilets. But there was always an outhouse for this purpose, so how did the along the road thing start? How did it become okay that when people, mostly men, are pressed to urinate they just stop anywhere, bring out their shriveled penis and start urinating?
Let us not talk about all the outdoor shitting that goes on in this Lagos, that one is a matter for the United Nations.
I was on a bus returning home from church one Sunday, the bus was half full and just there, along the road, was somebody’s daddy urinating into a gutter facing the road, penis hanging out there like it was screaming – Happy Sunday. I closed my eyes and sighed, but the other people in the bus laughed, like what is wrong with this one? But my own morning had been ruined as images stay in my head for far too long. This is why I don’t like shaking hands with men; you do not know how many times in the day they have urinated along the road and of course did not wash their hands.
The most traumatising sight for me remains the day I was going to make duplicate keys by a taxi park in Anthony. Lovely, not too sunny or cloudy day, and what did I see? An old man peeing in a gutter facing the road. No shame, no sense of decency, there was literally nowhere to turn my face to, so I stopped some feet away and tried to cross to the other side of the road, but the traffic was too much. When I finally looked up to check if oga had finished his business, a scrounged up penis was in my line of sight, and then the old man with his brown teeth smiled and winked. The food in my stomach flipped.
There is a gutter outside my office building, I have lost count of the number of times I opened the gate and met a penis, once I was so shocked at just bumping into one that I went back inside, counted to 60, and when I came out the penis and its owner had left.
Lagos (Nigerian) men, it is not okay to urinate along the road, more so, to traumatise people with your penis. No, do not tell me it is urgent because I don’t see you guys doing number 2 everywhere if you have to, do you mind waiting till you get to a more covered spot with bushes or something? Abi should KAI – Kick Against Indiscipline – people start arresting men urinating along the road first? I bet if you have to pay N5,000 fine for urinating along the road, you people will wait till you get home.
Nobody, not your wife or girlfriend or kids want to see your penis hanging out along the road. The year has not ended, add this to your new year resolutions.
Thank you.
P.S stop counting and cringing at the number of times I used the word penis, it is a body part.