Reportorial duties took me to Jos, the capital of Plateau State where I spent a whole week, covering the convocation activities of the University of Jos UNIJOS, when the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe Aladesanmi iii CON was installed the Chancellor of the prestigious citadel of knowledge in 2007. My BSES colleague, Mr Femi Aladesiun was on the trip as cameraman.
The monarch and his wife, Olori Bosede Eyesorun went to Jos by air and the rest of his entourage traveled by road. We went in a convoy of four vehicles which included the stretch limousine car of the royal father.
When we got to the city at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers - Lokoja, the capital of Kogi State, we stopped over to have our lunch but to our dismay, the prices of pounded yam and meat at the road side canteen we entered, suddenly went up. Why? We came in a limousine car. After much pleading to no avail, we ate pounded yam without meat because we could not afford to buy meat and continued our journey. Those of us involved in the drama including, palace drivers, those who carry the monarch's big umbrella, waiters on the royal father and the palace trumpeter, still laugh our heads off whenever we meet and reminisce on the experience.
On arrival in Jos, we drove straight to the airport named after the former Nigerian Military Head of State from 1966 to 1975, Yakubu Gowon. The airport is located at a suburb of like going to Akure from Ado Ekiti from where we received our principal and drove him to his official residence.
Apart from the week long UNIJOS convocation ceremonies which Oba Adejugbe presided over as the Chancellor, the royal father also took time off to visit his counterpart in the ancient city, the Gbong Gwom Jos.
At my spare time during the visit to the kingdom of the Tor of Tiv, I climbed the hill at the back of the official residence of the Chancellor of UNIJOS where we stayed and I interviewed people using hammer and similar heavy iron rod to break rock moulders into smaller pieces. Majority of them were women and minors. They told me that tipper operators would come to buy their stock whenever they had a load ready. Rock chopping is the name I coined for their vocation which is what a lot of people depend on for a living in Plateau State.
I had another opportunity to join the entourage of the Ewi of Ado Ekiti to Jos again four years later when Oba Adejugbe's appointment as Chancellor of University of Jos was renewed for another four-year term. Both opportunities enabled me to interact with professional colleagues from other areas of the country, see the palace courtyard of other cultures and also to compare the cost of living in other places of the country. The exposure made me to agree to some extent with the popular opinion of the average man in Ekiti that things are costlier in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital than most state capitals in the country. The hair cut I had in Jos was at half of the price I usually paid back home in Ado. We did some shopping at the Jos Terminus Market reputed as the biggest market in West Africa and prices of food stuffs and manufactured goods like clothing and shoes were much cheaper than what we expected.
Jos however disappointed me in a particular area because I did not experience the much talked about all year round cool temperate climate at the plateau. Driving into Jos is really climbing on to a plateau but the city was much warmer than Ado Ekiti on both occasions I was there. I found out however that the Ekiti State capital and her Plateau counterpart share a striking similarity in their hilly topography. Talking about similarity reminds me also that Plateau and Ekiti States are in the same boat as the only two states in the country where a political State of Emergency had been declared.