ROctober

By Moyo Awotile

I once broached the topic with my mom and she asked me if I was willing to attend a broom deliverance in her pastor’s house.

This past Saturday, as per last Saturday of the month, I was doing some spring cleaning in my room and plotting laudable escape tactics – as my leave was scheduled to start the following Monday and I was determined to spend it with my mom – when my phone rang.

It was a friend I hadn’t spoken with in ages.

“Are you still active in the rock scene? There’s this rock concert at Freedom Park today”.

I didn’t need to be told twice, I got dressed and drove down to the park. Thirty minutes later, and an incidence with Lastma, where I was stopped after mistakenly passing a one-way route and an officer trying to collect my number as payment for my crime, I finally located the park deep in the heart of Lagos.

When I walked in, I was taken aback. Was I still in Lagos? The park looked like a replica of Michael Jackson’s Thriller set. Painted zombie and skull faces everywhere, goth costumes, shrill music, it was amazing! The ambience, the people, everything was amazing. I was transported back to the period of my life where I lived for goth music and I was happy.

All through the drive back home, I was lost in thought. Why did I stop? Where did I lose touch with this part of me?

Then I remembered how my family and quite a number of friends, out of a lack of understanding of what the genre rock is, badgered me to lose this interest. Why do people hate what they do not understand?

The month of October is earmarked for this rock festival because it is the same month Halloween is celebrated. Both events have been labelled as taboo by majority of Nigerians. You ask a Nigerian if they celebrate Halloween, and they are telling you how if they want to see witches walk amongst humans, all they need to do is travel to their Hometown. I once broached the topic with my mom and she asked me if I was willing to attend a broom deliverance in her pastor’s house.

Some people find beauty in things others consider dark and mysterious. That doesn’t mean said people are evil, unkind, violent or lacking in humour, it just means they have a different perspective to many and often the opposite is true.

I believe Africans in general need to be more open-minded and less judgemental. In a conformist society, people who have the ability to think and act for themselves, regardless of their background, are more valued.

Do something different today.