Fresh Fish on Eko Bridge

My wife loves fresh food – fresh produce, fresh fish, anything fresh. She particularly likes fresh fish, yet she hardly gets to eat fish because the majority of what you see on the market are frozen fish.

Her love affair with fresh fish is so passionate that a few years ago when we visited Nigeria, we opted to travel to Abuja from Ibadan by road mainly because she had been told that roads in Lokoja were ‘paved’ with assorted fresh fish, and she wanted to sample them. In the event, we neither encountered fresh fish in Lokoja, nor were we able to sample the roasted ones we saw simply because we were still rather smug and couldn’t handle the flies that accompanied them.

So Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010, we left Church refreshed by the benefits of the sacrifice of Jesus - including the hope of eternity, the brilliance of becoming God’s children, and freedom to live life to the full. Afterwards, we made our way to Terra Kulture in Victoria Island to see a show titled ‘Prisoners Chronicle’. Written by Wole Oguntokun, it’s the story of four prisoners, a warder and his wife, and it’s a satire on Nigeria. The actors were very professional and gave an impressive performance although the hall was rather cold from the efforts of four giant air-conditioners bleeding their cool air into the theatre without fear or favour.

Before the show we had a meal at Terra Kulture’s restaurant and I got to speak to a Spanish lady who moved to Nigeria two years ago to sell building tiles. Who says only Nigerians move to Nigeria?

At roughly 5pm, we left Victoria Island via Eko Bridge which in my view is livelier than the long, lonely and boring ‘Third Mainland Bridge’. As we climbed the bridge, we saw a group of men and women displaying all manners of freshly caught fish. We stopped! Some of the fish, still full of life were dancing around the hard tarmac and in the plastic bowls. We bought some Red Snappers. The fishmonger pried open the fish’s heads revealing their red gills - proof that they were freshly caught, proof that we didn't need.

We soon got home, grilled some of the fish grilled and settled to a nice roast-fish dinner with grilled potato and plantain. At last, my wife was able to fulfil her life-long ambition of cooking fresh fish in Lagos. It’s a case of what she was going to ‘Sokoto’ for is in her ‘sokoto’.

Eko Bridge, she will be back. Trust me, she will!