If you have ever lived in a Nigerian compound, you know that the most dangerous words in the English language are not “We need to talk.” They are: “Landlord says all tenants should come downstairs by 7 p.m.”

That message landed on our compound WhatsApp group on Tuesday evening, with three exclamation marks and a voice note from Baba Landlord himself. The voice note was mostly background noise of a radio, but we managed to hear the words “emergency,” “water,” and “nobody should be absent.”

The Gathering of the Tenants

By 7:15 p.m., every tenant in the building had come downstairs carrying their own plastic chair, because Baba Landlord’s chairs are reserved for “important visitors.” We arranged ourselves in a circle like a village square meeting.

There was Mr. Okon from Flat 2, who always comes to meetings with a notebook and never writes anything. There was Madam Joy from Flat 4, who sells pure water and somehow brought a full bag to sell during the meeting. There was the young couple in Flat 6 who always look like they are planning to move out. And there was me, in my slippers, praying it would be short.

It was not short.

Agenda Item One: The Water Tank

Baba Landlord stood up, adjusted his cap, cleared his throat for a full minute, and began. “I have called this meeting because of the water tank.”

We nodded seriously. The tank had been leaking for two weeks, and the pumping machine made a sound like a goat with a cold.

“But before we talk about the water tank,” he continued, “let me talk about the gate.”

And just like that, we left the water tank. We would not see it again for the rest of the evening.

The Gate Debate

According to Baba Landlord, somebody had been leaving the gate open after 10 p.m. Everybody immediately looked at the young couple in Flat 6. The young couple looked at each other. Then the husband looked at the sky, like he was expecting a helicopter to rescue him.

Mr. Okon opened his notebook, looked at it, and closed it again. Madam Joy sold two sachets of water to the gate man.

How the Meeting Travelled the World

From the gate, we moved to the issue of people spreading clothes on the balcony “like a market.” From the clothes, we moved to the generator noise from Flat 3. From the generator, we somehow moved to the price of tomatoes, then to whose child kicked the football into Baba Landlord’s window in 2019.

At one point, Baba Landlord spent fifteen minutes telling us how he built the house with his own money, “one block at a time,” while we all nodded like students in a lecture we had heard many times before.

Madam Joy had sold her whole bag of water by then. She was the only person who made a profit from the meeting.

The Contribution Surprise

Then came the part every tenant fears. Baba Landlord brought out a small paper and announced that each flat would contribute money for “maintenance.” Mr. Okon finally wrote something in his notebook. It was the amount. He underlined it twice and sighed.

The Grand Ending

At 9:20 p.m., two hours and five minutes after we started, Baba Landlord said, “Okay, I think we have covered everything. Meeting adjourned.”

Somebody at the back whispered, “But what about the water tank?”

Baba Landlord paused. He looked at the tank on the roof. The tank looked back at him and dripped quietly.

“We will discuss it at the next meeting,” he said, and walked inside.

We all carried our plastic chairs back upstairs in silence, like soldiers returning from a long battle. As I climbed the stairs, the pumping machine started its goat noise again. Na so life be for compound.

What We Learned

• An “emergency meeting” can last longer than a Nollywood trilogy.
• Always bring your own chair, and maybe a snack.
• The agenda is just a suggestion.
• If you sell pure water, every meeting is a business opportunity.

What is the funniest thing your landlord has ever said at a tenants’ meeting? Share this with your compound group chat and drop your landlord stories in the comments!

Featured image: Photo: “Central Park Lake” by guillenperez, CC BY-ND 2.0, via Openverse — source

Welcome back to Ask Mairago, the advice column where no problem is too big, too small or too feathery. This week’s letter comes from a tired reader in Ibadan who has not had a full night’s sleep since the rainy season began.

This Week’s Letter

Dear Mairago,

Please help me. My neighbour, Mr. Adewale, bought a rooster three months ago. I don’t know where he found this rooster, but it is not a normal bird. It starts crowing at exactly 4:00 a.m. every day. Not 4:01. Not 3:59. Exactly 4:00, like it has a contract.

And it doesn’t crow once. It crows like it is leading a prayer meeting. There is an opening crow, a long middle crow, then a closing crow, and then, after a short break, it starts the second session. By 5 a.m., the dogs on our street have joined in. By 5:30, the baby next door is crying. By 6 a.m., I am awake, angry and confused.

I have tried earplugs. The rooster crows through them. I have tried sleeping with a pillow on my head. The rooster crows through the pillow. Mr. Adewale himself sleeps peacefully, because his room faces the other side. Mairago, what should I do? I am tired.

Signed,
Sleepless in Ibadan

Mairago Replies

Dear Sleepless,

First of all, take a deep breath. Then take a nap if you can, because you have clearly earned one. We read your letter at 4:00 a.m. just to feel your pain, and we can confirm: we heard a rooster somewhere in our own neighbourhood too. They are everywhere. They are organised.

Now, let us solve this problem, the peaceful Naija way.

Step One: Understand the Rooster

Your rooster is not your enemy. Your rooster believes it has a job. In its mind, it is the official alarm clock of the street, and it takes its work very seriously. Honestly, it is more committed to its job than half of us. Before you plan anything, give it a little respect. It wakes up early without coffee.

Step Two: Talk to Mr. Adewale, Kindly

The best solution is a friendly conversation. Don’t go to his gate with a long face and a list of complaints. Go with a smile, maybe some puff-puff, and say something like, “Good evening, sir. Your rooster is very talented. It is so talented that the whole street now wakes up at 4 a.m.” This compliment-complaint combo is very powerful. It is the jollof of diplomacy.

You can politely suggest that the rooster’s coop be moved to the back of his compound, or covered at night. Many roosters crow less when their space stays dark until morning. Mr. Adewale may simply not know there is a problem, since he is sleeping like a baby on his own side.

Step Three: Things You Should Not Do

• Do not record the rooster and play it outside Mr. Adewale’s window at midnight. This leads to a “sound war,” and nobody wins a sound war.
• Do not buy your own rooster for revenge. Now there are two roosters, and the street will hold a full choir rehearsal every morning.
• Do not try to “negotiate” directly with the rooster. We tried this once. The rooster won.

Step Four: Turn Wahala Into Opportunity

If all else fails, remember that the most successful people in the world wake up early. You are now one of them, whether you like it or not. Use those early hours. Exercise. Read. Pray. Start a business selling earplugs to your neighbours. In one year, you might be writing to us to say, “Thank you, rooster.”

Also, try going to bed a little earlier. If the rooster is your alarm, at least make sure you have slept enough before it starts its first session.

Final Words

Dear Sleepless, a good neighbour relationship is worth more than one peaceful morning. Be kind, be patient, and be smart. With a little conversation and a little puff-puff, we believe this rooster’s 4 a.m. crusade will soon be moved to a more reasonable time, or at least a more distant location.

Sleep well, when the rooster allows.

Love,
Mairago

Do you have a funny problem you want Mairago to solve? Share this with that friend who has a noisy neighbour, and drop your own silly problem in the comments. It might be next week’s letter!

Featured image: Photo: “Rooster Crowing” by radellaf, CC BY 2.0, via Openverse — source

Every street has one. The neighbour who is friendly, cheerful, generous with greetings and strangely allergic to owning anything. They do not ask for money, which is their great strength. They ask for things. Small things. Reasonable things. A lot of small, reasonable things.

This is the story of Mr. Ikenna and his neighbour, Mama Blessing, who has not bought a ladder in twenty years.

The First Request

It began with a cup of sugar. Mr. Ikenna had just moved into the flat next door, and Mama Blessing came by with a plate of biscuits and a warm smile. “Welcome to the compound! If you ever need anything, just ask.” Then she paused and said, “By the way, can I borrow some sugar?”

He gave her a cup. She thanked him and returned two days later with a half-cup and a long explanation about how the rest had “gone into the pap”. He accepted it graciously. A good neighbour does not argue about sugar.

That was the beginning. The sugar was a test, and he had passed.

The Extension Cable Years

The next request was an extension cable. “Just for one hour,” she said. Mr. Ikenna handed it over. A week later, he needed it to charge his laptop and found it missing. He went next door. Mama Blessing was using it to run a fan, a blender, a phone charger and what looked like a small television.

“Ah, you need it?” she said, as though it had never occurred to her that cables had owners. “Just give me ten minutes.”

Ten minutes became an hour. An hour became a day. At last, the cable came back, tied in a neat bundle with a thank-you note and the faint smell of fried plantain. He plugged it in. It no longer worked.

“Ah,” said Mama Blessing, when he told her. “That is how it was when I borrowed it.”

The Ladder Incident

One Saturday, Mr. Ikenna decided to repair his roof gutter. He went to the storeroom for his ladder and found a blank space. A small, empty, ladder-shaped silence.

He knocked on Mama Blessing’s door. “Good morning. Have you seen my ladder?” She looked genuinely surprised. “Ah, the ladder! I borrowed it in March.” It was October.

“Can I have it back?”

“Of course. It is with Mr. Segun in the next building. He borrowed it from me for his gate.”

So Mr. Ikenna walked to Mr. Segun’s building, who said, “Ah, the ladder! Mr. Dele has it.” Mr. Dele said, “I gave it to the church.” The church said, “Which church?” and the ladder began a long journey through the neighbourhood that would one day make a wonderful documentary.

The Pressing Iron Pattern

A few weeks later, Mama Blessing knocked on his door at 6:15 on a Monday morning. “Good morning, my dear. Do you have a pressing iron?” Mr. Ikenna, half asleep, said, “Yes, but I need it for work.”

“I will return it in five minutes,” she said.

He gave it to her. She returned it at 9:30 p.m., warm, lightly scorched and carrying a faint trace of someone else’s shirt collar. He would have been angry, but she had also brought a small plate of jollof rice. It is difficult to complain about an iron when you are holding rice.

This was Mama Blessing’s secret weapon. She always returned what she borrowed with a little something extra. A plate of food. A story. A prayer. By the time you realised you had been inconvenienced, you were smiling and full.

The Perfect Return

The strangest part was the timing. Mama Blessing had a mysterious gift: she always returned things at the exact moment you needed them again. Not a day early. Not a day late.

One evening, Mr. Ikenna was cooking and realised he was out of onions. He thought about going to the market, but it was already dark. At that exact moment, there was a gentle knock. Mama Blessing stood at the door holding exactly four onions. “I borrowed three last month,” she said. “I added one for interest.”

The next week, he was assembling a bookshelf and needed a screwdriver. His own was missing. Before he could even finish the thought, the doorbell rang. Mama Blessing appeared with the screwdriver, a hammer he did not know he had lent and a pair of pliers that were definitely not his.

“Where did these come from?” he asked.

“Oh, from the neighbours,” she said. “We have a very active circle.”

The Great Neighbour Swap

By the end of the year, Mr. Ikenna had made a surprising discovery. Mama Blessing was not borrowing in a selfish way. She was running an unofficial community exchange. Pots, ladders, drills and extension cables flowed through the compound in a great generous loop. Everyone took something. Everyone gave something. Nothing stayed in one place for very long.

He realised that his own storeroom had never been so organised. Items he lost had a habit of returning, often improved by someone else’s repairs. His neighbours, he understood, were not thieves. They were a very slow library.

That evening, he knocked on her door with a smile. “Mama Blessing,” he said, “I need to borrow something.”

“Ah, finally! What do you need?”

He held out an empty plate. “A little jollof rice.”

She laughed and filled it to the brim. “Return it when you can,” she said. And for the first time, he understood why nobody on the street ever locked their gate.