Blog Post: Twitter caused it... In loving Memory of my First Car by @Mrodada

…"I already heard your side of the story (I have a confession; don't take it personal) here's mine"…
It began in December about 3 years ago you wanted a blackberry desperately before Christmas, you had been saving up for months and finally there it was your very own blackberry phone. I couldn't have been bothered, I was comfortable with my Nokia E72 'series mobile (it had really cool features + it could slide too *wide grin*)…did I mention that my #facebook page was just a click away? So I was fine and contented with my ping-less device. By February 2010 I was already feeling the buzz of your BB… it was rubbing off on me… and we couldn't have a decent conversation anymore? The only thing you wanted to show me or talk about was one of your contacts 'display picture' (dp) on BBM or the latest gossip on twitter...#pause, which one is twitter again?

A month after I succumbed and finally gave in to acquiring a RIM phone, at first I was excited about it 'cause at least I get to "ping now" but then again it was just having the same device as LEBETE/ sharing in her world of social-media and escaping into cyber space together that engulfed me..I was thrown back by the many new features & applications that existed in cyber-space BB but coming from a back ground of journalism and NEWS what intrigued me more was the social-media application TWITTER…

It was sometime in March 2010, LEBETE and I were enroute a wedding reception somewhere in Yaba and then she kept taking pictures of me while driving wearing a brown cap (the exact semblance of Obafemi
Awolowo's signature cap), one of those pictures she had taken was to become my first twitter avatar a few days later…randomly she picked up my BB and opened my first twitter account…@opemii was thus "created in March 2010" with her followers and his followings, quite frankly signifying the beginning of the end as time or rather how we say it on twitter "my Timeline would have it".

August 2010, I had gotten a hang of it…tweet count was going up so also was my followers/following stats my #facebook page as at this time was "dead" already (only time I went there was when I got e-mail notifications about whatever…). LEBETE was bad ass though (means good in a cool way J); I learnt the ropes from her and then my alter ego grew way out of prominence and so it was that in my own journey down twitteria-lane I came across an interesting personality by the name LABATA. LABATA is a "twitter-celebrity" (yes, there's such a word) she struck me as a very smart/intelligent/witty and humorous person but I guess what came across to me in all of this was the strength of this woman. I could totally relate with it but these were mere assumptions and in order not to misconstrue I decided that to get a clearer image thus finding out more I had to hit the follow button.

Now following the tweets of LABATA I was fascinated with her selfless demeanors, crazy shenanigans and perplexed emotions…It was 'LUST' already and I so badly wanted to meet her, the opportunity finally presented itself in one of those rave (beach) moments that's synonymous with twitter. Having gone clubbing the previous night I was beat but then my side-kick (Capt. Cave-Man *lol*) gave me moral justifications why I shouldn't go? That cut it for me because it made me change my mind; we jumped in our rides and made our way to Elegushi beach.


Her gait had a certain aura that surrounded her which was amazing, I felt like a needle in a hay stack (I was there but incognisant). LABATA was all she said she'd be PLUS MORE so it was only right that I had to see with my own eyes, hence the "famzing" began… into a different kind of gravitational space, we were flying without wings; two peas in a pod! We had a lot of stuff in common that we shared passionately; music was one of them, literature, events, laughter, fashion, fun, humour, love, gist, food etc and ofcourse there was Twitter; I guess it was by a niche safe to say that P' was set!

September 2010, I met LEBETE at a social event she had planned and by this time it wasn't rosy between us anymore. We talked for a bit about our lives (as it were) and our future (as it was supposed to be) a couple of tears rolled down our cheeks after looking into each other's teary eyes we bid ourselves farewell and said our goodbyes! …a few days later I got a mail from Twitter.com "you have successfully de-activated your twitter account"…and I thought to myself, have I? Immediately I forwarded the mail to my bestie who works in 'E-business channels' and has access to the internet from his desktop 24-7 and told him to help me check the main site that somebody somewhere was playing a joke on me and it wasn't funny! He reverted with a shocker…"there's nothing you can do about it your account has been hacked and deleted, did you give anybody your password"? Three things came to my mind at that instance; March 2010, the END I talked about and LEBETE!

September 30 2010, @MrOdada came into existence…I was tense I was very tense, for me at that time it wasn't about getting my over 8000 tweets and 250 followers back but trying to explain what happened and convince everyone that this is the tweep formerly known as @opemii. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and with the help from LABATA and my other friends/followers I was able to do pretty well within the first few days of tweeting with my new handle...

October 5 2010, it was my birthday #teamLIBRA *wide grin* the day happened to fall on a Wednesday (work day) so all prior arrangements for the day were moved till the weekend to accommodate all the birthday tidings, and so it was that Friday 7th 2010 my friends and I rendezvoused somewhere in IKOYI where we were supposed to kick-off the birthday celebrations. I was joined with a lot of my colleagues and even bosses from the office to celebrate with me on my 'born-day'… that night at the spot I posted a tweet, it was to be my last tweet before the events that would occur later that night I wrote; "LABATA, you look beautiful tonight"…I got a couple of RT's and wide eyes (O_O) from my followers but hey it was twitter…crazy fun and banter.

My friends and I later left the island for the mainland, little did I know that there was a surprise party for me at "our usual" spot on the mainland. We all made our way there in a convoy of cars; FUBU my auto-mobile at that time was a beauty to behold…auto base blue colour/tinted windows all through/225/17 inch tyres with alloys to die for/pioneer deck that you couldn't stop your toes from curling to the sound of the beat *takes a deep breath* BABY_BOY. I didn't intend to stay too long at the spot that night I wanted to be home in time for birthd…NVM :I …so it was that LABATA and I made our way home, I was doing about 120km/hr and listening to deuces. The journey from the spot to my crib under normal circumstances shouldn't last more than 10minutes after I hit the express, I took a quick glance at LABATA she was leaned back in the front seat pressing her BB I had no idea what she was doing at the time, twitting or pinging? Anyways, with the music still playing really loud (deuces (remix) – Chris brown, Drake, Andre 3000) I set my eyes on the road (this was a little after 1am) and all I could see was the full light of my Honda-Accord adorning the empty road…or so I thought until I saw it! It was sitting ducks, it had just broken down and there was no form of caution to warn approaching motorists, the driver and other truck boys had abandoned the vehicle in the middle of the road (as they would claim in their statement later they had gone to look for grass or something to make fire out of)…it was quite unfortunate that it was my car that had to be the first to "greet" them at that time of the night, I went-IN with FUBU's entire side hitting the cement truck so friggin' hard there was nothing else I could have done!! Thank God I didn't go in head-long, thanks to God and my quick reflexes…my car spun and the impact caused owing to the speed I was doing was so much that the car crashed #pause *real tears*…

*inserts @Donjazzys Oliver Twist beat here ---àLEBETE, LEBETE LEBETE! …LABATA, LABATA LABATA!! I'm just an OLIVER, OLIVER OLIVER TWIST!!!* …#LessonLearned don't get carried away by virtual reality that would make you forget about real love & Life; It aint my fault my dears I'm so sorry but TWITTER CAUSED IT…

N.B: In loving memory of my first car FUBU that died the night of October 7th 2010 so that I could live.