The Agama

 

The Agama

I was recently watching a show on the Disney channel called ‘Iwaju.’ It is an animated show made by three Nigerian movie makers and the story is based in a fictionalized version of Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria. I had grown up in Nigeria but have lived in the United States for the last thirty years. The language of the movies was ‘Pidgin’ English, a version of English that I am very familiar with. Nigeria has over 140 languages, and this version of English often serves as a lingua franca in Nigeria. I was having fun watching the show with its futuristic depiction of Lagos, when a new character appeared. It was an Agama lizard.
 
The Agama lizard in the show was a robot, designed to protect the young heroine of the show by her father. However, it brought a lot of nostalgia for me. Agama lizards are ubiquitous in Nigeria. They are everywhere with their flaming orange necks and purple blue bodies. I have not seen them anywhere else, but I hear that they are now spreading in the state of Florida in the United States. They likely came here as escaped pets and the consistent warm and wet weather, a fast reproduction cycle and no natural predators have helped their spread. They have a fiery appearance with a flaming orange neck and dark blue and purple bodies. As reptiles they have poor ability to control their internal temperature and would often be seen warming themselves in the sunshine. They also tend to nod their heads at regular intervals. They are fairly harmless.
 
Their head nodding reminded me of an incident of my childhood. In the early 1980’s I was attending Barewa College, in Zaria, Nigeria. In those days, this was an elite high school in Northern Nigeria. At that time, we had a new principal, Mr. Ishaq Nuhu. He was only the second indigenous person to hold this position as previous principals had been mostly British men. He was a most dignified and refined person but during our daily recitation of the national anthem, he tended to nod his head. Thus, the students promptly decided to nickname him ‘Agama’. This name became so synonymous with him that I forgot his real name and had to look it up.
 
On another day I was playing with my good friend Shuaib. We must have been 11 or 12 years old then. Shuaib was American. His father had converted to Islam and moved to Africa in the late 1960’s from Boston. I attended Barewa College with Shuaib and his brother. On that day Shuaib had found some catapults. Shuaib was good at hitting targets, but I was lousy. In the yard we came upon a bunch of Agama lizards sunning themselves on a fence. Now we were not cruel kids, but in our foolishness challenged each other to see if we could hit the lizards. Shuaib went first and missed despite being an excellent shot. I went next and being a poor shot, never expected to hit anything. However, the Agamas had realized someone was shooting pellets at them and were scrambling, and one came right in the path of my pellet and got knocked off the wall. He however must have been okay as I saw him scrambling away.
 

This lucky hit scared us and we both ran off. I do not think I ever played with a catapult again! Watching this movie brought all those childhood memories back. The population of Agama lizards is now gradually spreading in the United States, maybe I will run into one again. This time I will not be hurling any more pellets at them.