Oso drove through part of the East-West Road from Port Harcourt to Ahoada without excitement but given his experience on the day he left his employer, he maintained excellent presence of mind. But when he turned into Ahoada-Omoku Road, he felt a weight descend on him like a dark cloud. He considered himself a broken man with neither plan nor hope. He drove at 20km per hour on the narrow streets and navigated his way to the street where his residence stood. At the gate he disembarked, opened, drove in, and parked with the coat of dejection as the overhang. But when he looked at his country home, he thanked the heavens for the decision he made to build a house in his home town.
The day he decided to buy a piece of land and start the building, a friend sold a business idea to him. Despite the high probability of success of the business, Oso convinced himself a family house in his home town held more immediacy. He looked with excitement at the elegant bungalow as well as the external works. He called it a palace with a critical ingredient – no one would knock on the gate to demand rent or installment due on loan on the building. Max Projects Inc. provided bulk of the money as housing loan and he repaid the loan five years after he borrowed it.
By day break the next day, he found himself ready for work as a habit but with no work available as he used to know. Because his life hated idleness, he engaged himself in farming at the backyard where half a hectare of land remained in fallow. He prepared beds for short-maturing crops with maize, pumpkin, waterleaves, cucumber, and garden eggs as his best bet. He sourced the seedlings and fertilizers from the Agricultural Extension Department.
His recalled his long term plan for the unused plot to include development of an estate for rent all the more so the land bordered another street which meant tenants would have no need to enter through his side of the property. Inadequacy of resources worked against the dream but the setback turned out to be a blessing given his new circumstance.
Two weeks after his arrival, Oso utilised the front end of the compound. He raised flowers and tree seedlings for sale and recruited two assistants, one for the vegetable garden and the other for the botanical garden. Although he felt no love for the profession of farming, he ploughed himself into the venture with gusto. The initial inputs as well as assistants were sourced at minimum cost with part of the funds he left Port Harcourt with. His business sense did warn him to avoid overtrading and he obeyed.
In 90 days, the maize he planted became due for harvest and sale. He went about the exercise with delight and expectation as he sold the corn in raw, roasted, and boiled forms. Before the maize ripened, the garden eggs, waterleaf, and cucumber were ready and were sold while new ones continued to grow. The flower garden enveloped the surrounding with the scent of perfume aside from the blazing colours, which appealed to the eyes.
The biggest problem of agriculture in Nigeria continues to be storage decades after independence. With processing facilities countable on the fingers of one hand, glut and waste follow shortage the way excess ingestion of food follows hunger. But a fruitful discussion with a big hotel in the town changed the story of Oso’s efforts. The hotel: “The Camelot,” became a dream come alive for a fresher in the volatile business of farming. On several days, the harvest met the demands of the hotel with no extras left for casual buyers.
A bigger break came when he made deliveries to the hotel one day. The Manager suggested Oso should discuss with the Chef, a Ghanaian named Mensa. Businesslike Mensah told Oso the hotel planned to outsource packaged salad and fruits for deserts. In five minutes the discussion ended as Mr. Mensa turned attention to a kitchen staff.
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Back home, Oso set to work, first to design the containers to be used as well as the stickers to bear the name of the hotel. He went back to the hotel by evening with a computer printout of what the packages would look like. Mr. Mensa approved but suggested a line: “A product of Oso Farms, Ahoada,” along with the hotel’s contact telephone, both in tiny print, to be included as part of the label. Whoever wanted more information would reach Oso through the hotel. His second engagement focused on planning for expansion in case demand outstripped supply.
For the next one month, Oso ploughed himself into the activity of restructuring his business model to include direct on site facilities to process and package. With savings from sales, he went to the waterside where he found 10 hectares of land and paid rent for one year for the planned expansion. New hands were recruited after men cleared the land and the Local Government Agricultural Extension Department used their tractor to plough and later provided extension services. He constructed a processing cum packaging shed close to the gate. In three months, the once fallow land found itself host to beds and beds of greenery.
When Oso commenced deliveries, what the farm offered turned out a winner from the first day. “The Camelot” management took the task of deliveries of some of the products to Port Harcourt.
A new development enlarged his coast further and proved his business enjoyed the attention of several well-heeled people. Oso received an invitation to a bazaar and exhibition at the Local Government Pavilion. The event managers – ProOrgInc – told him the organisers, a company associated with the Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, aimed to position small and micro entrepreneurs for the post COVID-19 world. Oso’s stand attracted considerable attention because he enriched it with local crafts made from raffia and wood. The three days of sales of ready-to-use packaged vegetables and fruits as well as flower seedlings were crowded, exciting, and profitable.
On the closing day, Oso looked up from his desk and noticed a man who made him stand at attention on impulse. Mr. Young-Harry stood at a distance and stared at him. Without the distinctive haircut regarded as his trade mark, Oso would have failed to recognise the man he used to meet six days a week for 13 years. Mr. Young-Harry wore a suit but the coat hung on him as if suspended on a coat stand. Oso recalled the coat stand in Mr. Young-Harry’s office as a Gufram product which matched the cactus flower at the entrance of the office.
The deep green suit he wore along with his wasted frame presented an unpleasant sight. The glint in his boss’s eyes existed as a miniscule. Oso observed the listless brown eyes and considered they made unmistakable statements of the dullness of the soul. He chided himself for failure to reach his boss from the day they parted.
“You must have thought I harbored ill-feelings against you, Boss,” Oso said after he sat with Mr. Young-Harry at a beautiful open-air restaurant. “Far from the truth sir. What happened during our last meeting made me decide to moult and leave behind my former coat of life,” He went on to tell the story of his marriage and concluded with the words: “Viruses invaded my marriage sir.”
“I met her last week,” Mr. Young-Harry said. “She continues to bubble like hot beer poured into a tall glass. She told me you left Port Harcourt, you live in Ahoada, and she believes you fare well. I hope you have stayed in touch.”
“Yes and no. Yes, because when the children disturb her beyond her elastic limit, she calls and hands the phone to them. No, because she says nothing to me when she calls.”
“Have you visited them?”
“No, but the children have been with me for several weekends, in fact bi-monthly. A friend brings them without their mother. Because they think I relocated to work at home, the secret of the estrangement between me and my wife remains in wraps.”
“I hope you supplement the kitchen.”
“In a technical sense I have resumed my role as the bread winner. I wire money into her account every month.”
“Any possibility of her movement to Ahoada?”
“I think Mimi cannot relocate for two reasons.”
“Well?”
“Her pride and her reluctance to leave the mega city.”
Mr. Young-Harry nodded.
“Sad. If Coronavirus has intellection it would understand how much destruction it has wrought. The difficult thing to comprehend remains its potency despite its lifelessness.”
Mr. Young-Harry shook his head and tapped his right foot on the ground.
“I guess no one can say it has been a delightful journey for you, sir,” Oso said.
“My case sounds and tastes different. My wife stepped into my large shoes the day I shut down. This has meant food arrived and has continued to arrive on the table for me to eat as and when due. The children are all in school. But no one with discernment can fail to notice the psychological toll. Imagine being a house-husband!”
Oso made sure he kept the conversation going.
“But Sir can one say age has played a part in this, I mean your decision to wait out the pandemic period without engagement in another trade?”
“No. I have spent much time to read and to think. If I have the opportunity, I will tell young men to make themselves as flexible as possible. Any business must have built-in flexibility. A business should be ready to be transformed from military hardware plant to production of face masks and packaging of foodstuff. Anything should be possible in business.”
“I agree with you Sir. I found it a pleasant surprise when I transformed from a consumer to full time producer in the agricultural sector. All the same age did play a part sir.”
“No. My colleague Dr. Danse, a medical practitioner by training has run a high school for several years but with the new reality he went into bottling of hand sanitizers and production of face masks at the backyard of his residence. He fares well and last week gave me palliatives, the trending word for survival assistance. My brother Oso, I have been a slow adopter all my life. I hate anything which puts stress on my physique. You do know I am an unrepentant fan of use of the intellect.”
“I know but have you identified a way forward Sir, for palliatives last as long as sympathy fatigue has some distance to cover?”
“My visit today may be the game changer. You have used minimum resources though with substantial physical input to achieve financial stability in a short while. I will think up something to meet my orientation and my financial capacity. I will have to strike a balance among hunger, available resources to start a project, and my orientation.”
“Just a handful of people give God sufficient credence for natural provisions Sir. Every business has risks but other than the tedium, nature-based businesses are best as start-ups.”
“Thanks for the lessons.”
Oso escorted Mr. Young-Harry to his car which wore the same spruced look. When Mr. Young-Harry opened the door and sat on the driver’s seat, Oso looked at him with questions in the eyes. The man forced a smile and said: “Do-it-yourself. My three drivers were sent home the same day. I learned how to drive after two decades of being chauffeur-driven. My brother, in the post COVID-19 world order slim-fit as a maxim must be regarded as the new normal. Do away with all extra flesh – anything dispensable – including girlfriends.”
His face creaked into a grin and the two men laughed the way they used to.
“Lest I forget Sir, thanks for the support,” Oso said.
“For?”
“Max Projects Inc. gave me loan to build a house. Where would I have lived? My father left a bungalow with face-me-I face you rooms. Elegant in his days but how would I have fitted in with shared toilet and kitchen?”
“But you played the bigger part.”
“How?”
“You gave the idea a thought. Several men love the city they forget home and the proverbial rainy day.”
Oso tilted his head several times sideways and nodded for his former boss made a critical point.
Mr. Young-Harry adjusted himself on the driver’s seat and switched on the ignition but peered at the dashboard. Oso looked at it and noticed the needle of the gasoline gauge stood at the fourth level or quarter tank. He ran back to his stand, took his purse, counted 20 of the N1,000 notes, and ran back to his erstwhile boss. He slotted the envelope into the glove compartment of the car.
“Please sir, when you are home, send details of your bank account by short message service. A token may drop in once a while at least for gasoline. Few things cause as much embarrassment as being stranded on the road when the tank yawns. And who knows, if Madam has spare space, I can suggest to the Manager of ‘The Camelot’ to include her shop as one of the outlets for our packaged fruits and vegetables.”
Mr. Young-Harry looked away, cleared his throat, revved the engine, and let it to run for a short time. He engaged gear and drove out of the field without a word. Before he left, Oso noticed a glint or call it a film on his iris. Oso took it to mean thank you in more than a thousand words.
. This column will feature weekly from Friday.
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