1998

I think it was in 1998 that the spirit of Ogbanje invaded the land, and our ladies started to carry teddy bears around.
I don't know how it started but the spread was massive as so many ladies willingly surrendered themselves to be possesed by this evil spirit.
It became so bad that they were bringing these teddies to the lecture halls, some even carry it along when going to grind pepper.
The ones who had a legion of Ogbanje spirit in them would add sucking of their thumbs to carring the teddybears.
Before we realised what was happening, what used to be a play-thing for toddlers became the major fashion item used in identifying a big girl.

I witnessed this at Kwara Poly at the time but i'm sure it would have been the same throughout the various institutions of learning in Nigeria.
While not trying to diss those that attended private Unis, i think this would have been understadable if they were the ones seen all over the place with teddies. It won't call for so much concern as it did (not so many of them were around then), but this strange occurence was seen at public institutions where they ought to know better.
It was indeed a pathetic sight to behold- to see adult children carrying teddybears and sucking their fingers in the compound of a tertiary school. It's enough to cause any parent to weep! This was exactly what i did- i wept on behalf of all the parents whose daughters were possessed by this evil spirit.

This went on for few years after and then the spirit either got cast out or was bored (because we sabi over-do things) and left.

In 2006, another spirit landed (by this time i was already in London). This was a spirit sent into the world to embarass people. Again, this spirit possessed mainly the ladies. It went about handing out baby suckers to ladies to be sucking. The spirit invaded the secondary schools and colleges mainly (i don't know much about the Universities then because i still dey find tution fees up and down).
There were many designs and colours of this sucker. It was another horrible sight to behold. How can a teenager or somebody on the borderline of adulthood be sucking rubber? The spirit also left after it got bored.

I'm witnessing another trend now which i'll talk about later.