Santa

Less of a human.
Backpacker | I sell cars |

[Javu, The first @cocojavu]

Nigeria will test you. Boy! Nigeria will test you!

I kid disappeared when he was 14, his folks searched everywhere for him with no success.

He was later discovered in prison and he was already 32. He couldn't even remember why he was arrested or how long his sentence is.

The prison doesn't have a record of his crime or sentence (that's what's making me bald with madness)

They've now secured his release though. But I'm just so mad at our condition in this country ��🤬🤬

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Next stop: Budapest ✈️

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

Grief!!!

[smv @slimvnsn]

I worked the night shift at a printing press in Apapa for 3 years.

10pm to 6am. The kind of hours that turn your body into a stranger. You sleep when the world wakes up. You eat dinner at midnight. You forget which version of yourself belongs to which hour. Your friends stop inviting you to things and after a while stop explaining why.

The only good part of those 3 years was the walk to the bus stop at 6:15am.

There was a tea seller at the junction before the overhead bridge. Small stove. Tin kettle always going. Plastic cups lined up like she was expecting everyone. Her name was Mama Tope. Sixties. Quiet in a way that felt deliberate. She'd pour your cup and look at the road and if you came for conversation you chose the wrong table.

I was there every single morning for 3 years. She never charged me full price. I never asked why. You learn in Lagos to accept certain kindnesses without pulling the thread.

2019 the press shut down. 6 weeks notice. I spent 4 months looking then landed a job in Ikeja that started at 8am on the other side of Lagos entirely. Different route, different everything. I stopped passing that junction.

Stopped thinking about it after a while. That's what survival does. It moves you forward so completely that the old places become another chapter you don't open anymore.

Last year my cousin's car broke down on Creek Road in Apapa at 7am. He called me. I parked and found him standing outside a mechanic's compound looking philosophical about everything. The mechanic said 2 hours minimum.

I walked to the junction while he waited. Not consciously. My feet just remembered the way without asking me.

The stove was still there. But different kettle, same spot, same plastic cups arranged the same way.

Mama Tope looked up when I reached the table. She studied my face the way people do when they're searching for something they filed away years ago.

Then she poured a cup without me asking. I sat down and said I used to come here. Night shift. The printing press up the road.

She nodded slowly. Said she remembered. She said I always came looking like someone who had been fighting the night all shift and lost every single round.

I laughed, she didn't. Just poured herself a cup and looked at the road.

Then she said something I wasn't ready for.

She said she used to reduce my price because her son worked night shift across town and never ate properly before leaving. She would pack food but he was always gone before she woke up. No matter how early she tried. She said feeding the people who came after a long night was the only way she knew to do the thing she couldn't do for him directly.

I asked about her son, she was quiet for a moment. Just looked at the road.

Said he died in 2020. Road accident on the expressway. Coming back from work at 6am.

The exact time I used to leave her table and start walking to the bus stop.

I didn't say anything. There was nothing useful to say. So I just sat there.

She refilled my cup without asking.
We sat like that for a while. Apapa moving around us the way it does. Buses, conductors, the morning carrying on with no interest in anyone's grief.

When I stood to leave I put down more money than the cup cost.
She looked at it on the table, then looked at me and said don't do that.

I left it and walked back to my cousin who took one look at my face and asked what happened down the road.

I said I'd tell him later. I still haven't found the right way to say it.

What I know is somewhere on that junction a woman has been waking before sunrise for years, heating water, lining up cups, and quietly feeding people who worked through the night because she never got to feed the one person she wanted to.

Every cup she pours is a conversation she never got to finish.

I eat before I leave the house now. Every single morning, she will never know that.

But she should.

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

!!!

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville : Ordinary Love movie is heartbreaking, the high and low in marriage when the test of time hits hard 💔

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville : Ordinary Love movie is heartbreaking, the high and low in marriage when the test of time hits hard 💔

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

It is not an evil thing to look at yourself with kindness. your life was never meant to be a punishment.

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

I said it but y'all slept on the intro before.....but eye don open now right, @davido is bigger than >>>>>>

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

Aside Messi, no other player does like Ronaldinho.

[Dr Sneaker Nyame @_sneakernyame]

‼️🚨
I don’t know what you are doing but take a sec to retweet this massively!

This kid was r@ped to death by his Academy Football coach in Ghana. Till now the coach is free and walking among the living .

#JusticeforRansford

[CHU❤️ KWU🤝 DI🫂 @chefchukwudi145]

Please if can loan me 200k to pay back in 2 months time 🙏🙏 I will be grateful 🙏 Abeg

Let me save my wife and unborn child life na beg I dey beg🙏🙏🙏

Am at the hospital and they are charging us 600k for C.S

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

@mubby249 @Coachchair007 He would be able to listen but can't judge or make comment 😁🤣

[𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕋𝕨𝕚 𝕋𝕨𝕚 𝕤𝕖𝕗 @Boy_TwiTwi]

Go and learn a trade, cause you'll need something else to re lion.

[Mesut Özil @M10]

Number 10, not just played but lived. ⭐

[Tayooooo @fupaliciouss]

A New Chapter

O.O Ogunnaike Esq ✨

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

And here.
Death trap stinking hospital.

[Zlatan Ibrahimović @Ibra_official]

Happy Birthday to Zlatan

[Santa @jay_balogun27]

The best there is.
The best there ever will be 👑

[My crown is beautiful👑 @mosa_doluwa]

It's my birthday 🎂🎉

[Aguntaasolo 🇨🇦 @iam_Lexzai]

There's no love in Ibadan ke? Dey play 😂😂 Finally an Ibadan love song🥳