Mama Deji And The Flying Pig
In the city of Kabba, under the aluminium roof, and also a satellite that has not been working for many years, Mama Deji. Mama Deji is a popular name all around the street. Of course, she is known to be a very stubborn woman with a sharp tongue that can destroy anyone. She is someone who believes in this perspective that "there is no more turning for the world"
Every morning, she will sit on our wooden stool that is located outside the compound, reshaping groundnuts and then listening to her radio, which she is playing alongside.
Sometimes when listening to the news, she will hiss. "This is what happens when pigs fly, nonsense news everywhere in the country"
Mama Deji was someone who, through her voice, could command the room even without saying anything. She is someone who always suspects anything that looks like progress.
"If NEPA can continually bring light for more than 5 hours, that means a pig will fly" is what she always says.
"If goods become cheap in Nigeria, that means pigs will fly"
"If Tinubu resign, that means pigs will fly"
"If that young boy passed mathematics, that means pigs will fly"
That is her constant words always flowing from her mouth of complaint.
Surprisingly, I was that young boy.
Around the age of 15, not that I was really failing in school, just that I began to chase the things that other people were not really after in town. When some of my fellow age group of boys are playing football, I will be repairing old radios and watching YouTube videos in a bid to pursue my dream of building machines.
There was this project I worked on which really gave me that joy, and that is building a little drone from scratch. I made use of an old fan motor that was abandoned and then made use of an abandoned smartphone battery and other parts. Who do I use as my test pilot? Well, it was our family pig called Biggy.
Biggy did not fly, but I built a harness that has wings, which I made from plastic. I attached them to Biggy and then set up the drone propellers. I carefully filmed the whole thing to point down what I need to work upon. Even though the video was not really that clear, of course, it captured the glorious moment when Biggie was lifted a bit from the ground. In a few minutes, his front legs were suspended and I was shouting in the background.
That shout was coming from a sense of fulfilment that I accomplished a very big thing. Of course, it was not really a flight, but I was proud of my effort.
I actually posted the video online and within 2-3 days, the video went viral all over the local WhatsApp groups.
People were surprised
"How can pigs be flying in Kabba?" That was what people were saying as they watched the video in excitement.
People love the video and have even reposted it. Though some people said it was JuJu that it is not really real.
The video got to the University of Ibadan, their science department and one of their coordinators contacted me through my email asking me if I could join their youth innovation program.
When I showed the message of invitation to Mama Deji. She was shocked and at the same time played down the progress just as she always do.
"Probably Pigs was really flying"
Of course that was 6-7 years ago. I went to the higher institution to studied civil engineering and graduated. Even though the passion to create drone is still in me probably who knows whether I might pursue it in the future.
But something always hit me hard whenever I remember those incidents and that is with the right determination, nothing is impossible to achieve.