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‘White Americans Discuss Tinubu in Chicago, USA’

Published

2 years ago

Jan 8, 2023.

By FEMI ODERE

After the day’s class training session, a female friend asked me if I could go with her to pick up her garment at a clothing store in Chicago’s downtown.

EDITOR’S PICKS

I obliged and we rode in her car.

On our way, a few of our trainee colleagues met us at the stoplights and asked where we were going and we replied accordingly.

We parked in front of the store. On entering and to my surprise, I asked my friend how come she was a familiar face at a white-owned, exclusive clothing store as a white guy, probably in his forties, greeted her as if he had known her for years.

“I only make adjustments to the clothes I buy here if it becomes necessary,” she said.

I immediately made a quick eye and mental survey of this store and concluded that the place was a family clothing and alteration shop. The middle-age white guy with whom my friend exchanged pleasantries and cordiality was most likely the heir apparent to the store, I reasoned.

The patriarch, who apparently established the store, perhaps in his eighties, was sitting behind a sewing machine.

Judging by some of the pictures on the walls of this store, it was apparent that the old man had sired a handful of prominent men and women in society.

My female friend and I soon took our seats while the patriarch started working on her garment. The younger son was arranging some new clothes and intermittently conversing with my friend.

Soon the old man’s wife, perhaps in her seventies, walked in and said hello to us. Her husband simply yielded the adjustment he was making on my friend’s cloth for her to continue.

I saw a pile of New York Times newspaper in front of where the old man was seated and I wondered aloud what the paper could be up to lately in its editorials as I haven’t read the newspaper in a long while.

I was about taking the newspaper on top of the sewing machine only for me to realize that the wife was using it to support her arm.

I apologized for the unintended intrusion. I took another newspaper from the pile and started flipping the pages.

A few minutes later the wife’s friend walked in. Almost in tow was also the old man’s male friend, followed almost immediately by the postman who came to deliver the day’s mails and to also collect mails that needed to be dropped at the post office.

From nowhere a discussion ensured. The discussion was about Nigeria’s electioneering campaign.

And Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s candidacy was the topic.

“I think the people had pretty much made up their minds to give victory to that man” the old patriarch said, referring to Tinubu.

“I think he’s got so much stuff in him,” the postman interjected as he was trying to identify the store’s mails from his bag.

My friend and I looked at each other with the kind of look that would give us away as to wondering why these old folks should be discussion Asiwaju and the Nigerian election.

“He’s very bold. And Americans like bold leaders,” the old man’s wife’s friend said while standing with her arms akimbo.

I was encouraged by the old woman’s statement that I stood up and said; “He’s not only bold. He’s a very courageous man that when he says this is what he would do, he would take you down memory lane by citing examples of what he did in the past to let you know that he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Asiwaju is someone who would speak to his own power when he gets there.”

They all looked at me more in wonderment than agreement with this last statement as I sat down.

And the Asiwaju discussion continued.

Suddenly, I found the discussion very interesting and worth writing about that I started scribbling some points to remember on the back of my friend’s receipt such as the names of the discussants and the address of the store for me to do a story after we left the store.

The address was 424 McIntyre street. It was on the east corner of Willoughby and McIntyre.