“Owolabi took me to all corners of the Araromi Spare Parts Market”
My first car was a Peugeot 305. That was in 1993. I had planned to buy my dream car, A Mitsubishi Galant, but the price was too high for the struggling reporter that I was, so I settled for an old 305.
I never drove the car for a full day without a mechanic bringing it back home.I became friends with mechanics and spare parts sellers. At that time, the two major spare parts markets in Ibadan were the Araromi Spare Parts market in Gate and the Ifeleye Spare Parts market at Oke Padi.
The car would work for half a day and stay with the mechanic for a week. As a result, I got quite close to one of the mechanics and we became friends. It fell at a time I and my flatmate, now Professor Wale Adebanwi, Director of the Insitute of African Studies,Oxford University, United Kingdom, were undertaking our post graduate programme at the University of Ibadan and the mechanic, who was a daily caller at our flat in the Akobo area on account of my Peugeot 305, became so fascinated with our academic engagements that he resolved to return to school and today holds a doctorate in one of the humanities from the University of Ibadan and teaches at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
There was hardly a week I did not visit one of the two spare parts markets, all in the vain hope that the car would work. Because the car was such a huge drain on my meagre finances, I nicknamed it “Owolabi”.
Owolabi introduced me to the nooks and crannies of the Araromi Spare Parts market and Ifeleye Spare Parts market. I therefore felt particularly nostalgic when I visited the Araromi Spare Parts market yesterday to condole with the traders who lost their shops in the recent fire.
