I have survived more accidents in this life than all Lagos molue drivers put together.
By the way, accident is accident. It is not only suffered on the highway.
I used to work in an office that had the greatest assemblage of beautiful ladies anywhere. After waka-waka assignments on one charged day, I dashed into the office and gathered nearly all beauties together.
The sizzling babes were wondering amongst themselves why I had called them together with such urgency and gusto.
Then I brought out the freshly-minted Ikebe Super calendar that its publisher Wale Adenuga had just given to me in his office then situated at Ojuelegba.
On the calendar were drawn a handful of breast sizes and their nicknames.
Then I asked each lady to choose the size and nickname of her breast as prescribed by the Ikebe Super calendar.
The ladies were initially shocked, just staring at the calendar, and then at me.
“Are you Fly-over or Agbalumo?” I asked the first lady by my side who had acted as the first Segi in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s television hit comedy Basi and Company.
“Fly-over”, according to the Ikebe Super calendar, portrayed a flat fallen breast that could fly over the shoulder while “Agbalumo” depicted a small but robust budding breast.
I was about to call out the nickname of the other breast type when – pardon the cliché – all hell broke loose!
The ladies descended on me, murder-bent, and I ducked and ran. They pursued me! I ran on! I am still panting…
Nobody can forget Ikebe Super magazine. Little wonder Sunny Nneji sang: “This Ikebe go put you for wahala!” The magazine, like a lady’s big buttocks, can put men in a tizzy.
There were no limits to the zones Ikebe Super magazine could venture into. In one instance, two robbers raided a house inhabited by a grandmother and her granddaughter and hollered: “We shall now rape all the women in this house!”
The young granddaughter begged the robbers thusly: “Please rape only me but don’t rape grandma as she will die!”
The grandma retorted sharply: “Let them rape everybody jare! Who told you that thing dey kill?!”
Wale Adenuga set up Ikebe Super magazine in December 1976 with money he had saved up in his youth service year. The Ife-born Business Administration graduate of the University of Lagos invented all the characters and drew up all the stories and cartoons in the magazine all by himself for the first four years.
As the business grew well beyond projections, Adenuga engaged artists such as Morak, Aliu Eruoje, Byron Enumah, Femi Arowolo, Kola Fayemi, Adamson E.S. etc.
The Ikebe Super characters were indeed a hilariously boisterous lot that could make you laugh until you forgot your name!
At its peak, Ikebe Super sold all of 500,000 copies!
The lead character, the uniquely balding Papa Ajasco, is a womanizer in overdrive. His wife, Mama Ajasco, cannot but accept her fate. Their son Ajasco is a prankster original. Boy Alinco is the ultimate young philanderer. Pa Jimoh is as brainless as they come. The later addition, Miss Pepeiye, is the runs lady in the hood.
The Ikebe Super stories became so popular, thus inspiring a feature film, Papa Ajasco, shot on celluloid. I can boast here that I was among the first watchers of the film at Oduduwa Hall, of the then University of Ife.
That was well before the full release of the film in 1984. We laughed so hard we completely forgot ourselves!
The cast of the film was made up of my Ife friends such as Peter Fatomolola as the eponymous Papa Ajasco and the late Jimi Shodimu as Boy Alinco. Aluwe played the part of Pa Jimoh.
The film filled up the 5,000-capacity main auditorium of the National Theatre, Lagos.
The rollercoaster film starts this way. Papa Ajasco goes on a business trip to Calabar. He lodges in a small hotel run by a husband and his wife.
Papa Ajasco then asks the astonished owner of the hotel to send him a harlot for the night. The hotelier in utter revulsion tells his wife about the “evil” request of the man from Lagos.
The annoyed wife rushes up to give corrupt Papa Ajasco a piece of her tongue. The horny Papa Ajasco mistakes the hotelier’s wife for the harlot sent for him for the night! Papa Ajasco instantly ravishes her!
When the hotelier waits for some time without seeing his wife, he rushes to Papa Ajasco’s room only to see the worst!
Maddened, he picks up his machete to slaughter Papa Ajasco who runs for dear life!
A race-for-life that starts in Calabar on foot and goes all the way through many Nigerian towns until Papa Ajasco runs back to Lagos!
You can now see that art imitates life when you juxtapose my running away from the office ladies with Papa Ajasco’s run from Calabar to Lagos!
Nothing can beat Ikebe Super!
