The Nigerian Broom

There is not a single house in Nigeria without an object that emanated from a palm tree. The ubiquitous mosquitoes might be absent and there might be no Nigerians, living or dead in the building but there is always something bearing that Palm Tree DNA lurking in the corner. Palm wine in the fridge or palm oil in the cupboard are variables but the one constant thing is the Nigerian Broom made from the palm fronds. This great iconic domestic appliance epitomises that cult of cleanliness that Nigerians subscribe to. I grew up under the shadow of the broom in Lagos. It was the epicentre of the day. One woke up in the morning and walked as if in a trance and started sweeping. The broom was a collection of palm frond petioles held together at one end by a band (the centre that held) that doubled up as a handle that was used to direct the lower lighter end in the battle against dirt. In the 1970s Lagos was a City with a cleanliness obsession so much so that while the Americans where busy acknowledging that the party was over by the appearance of the fat lady who sings, the Lagosian knew it was the lady or guy sweeping to the beat that told you it was time to go home. There was a rhythm to sweeping and many sang as they swept. Once in a while the song converted into a gasp when money was found.

Even people with no food swept the house clean. It was almost like the home was primarily meant for cleaning. The fetish priests adapted their charms accordingly. There was an anti-burglary system made out of a medium sized broom bedecked with a cowrie studded red cloth and having other accessories tied on its handle like tortoise and snail shells. This broom was normally placed above the door and legend has it that while this broom would not prevent a break in by robbers, as soon as they gained entrance into the house the ‘juju alarm’ kicked in making the robber grab the broom and start sweeping the home;  sometimes till morning light. This went on till the house owner said the magic word of release that immobilised the spell, (perhaps after a sound beating). This broom is called Igbale Esu (Devil’s room) or Aale Oogun.

By April 1975 when Bill Gates and Paul Allen where founding Microsoft with a vision of putting a computer on every desk in every home, Nigeria had reached an average of 4.5 brooms in every home. This high number per household was because on average four brooms were needed. Long hard brooms were used outside the house and a long soft one was used indoors. There was a medium length broom for the toilet and an ultra-short broom for food preparation; for the preparation of Ewedu vegetables in a pot.

There were other uses of brooms though. Kids used the hard brooms in the construction of paper kites and those who had new brooms awaiting their commission while sat in storage used them as make shift tooth picks.

The story is told of a man who asked his son to go and get him one broom stick from storage to aid dislodge beef stuck between his teeth. Mum was angry with dad and diverted the child to the toilet broom. The man thought the broom stick tasted funny and asked the son who then told what his mum had advised. We know how that story ended.
There was a sad broom story in my neighbourhood though. Two brothers fought and one struck the other over the face with the broom. It was an argument over who should do the sitting room sweeping. An eye was lost and depression followed. The guy died latter of causes I am unaware of. I suppose i blamed the Igbale for this disaster.

Sometimes when an insect needed killing but the murderer was too scared to stamp the life out of the poor creature a broom was used. Even tiny objects trapped in crevices could be teased out with two hard broom sticks held like chop sticks.

Everything was about cleanliness growing up. Two baths a day was compulsory, uniforms and shoes had to be super clean and the biggest adverts on the television were all soap adverts.

Lux soap and Joy soap television advertisements made stars out of Patti Boulaye and Benita Hamman respectively and the detergent powders battled it out for the hearts of Nigerians.

The 1980s saw a deterioration in the general cleanliness in the cities of Nigeria. The 50-60 million people in the country had grown to about ninety million and they continued to sweep and pack the waste out but the council men who came around weekly to collect the rubbish in the seventies stopped coming.  Forced environment sanitation days did little to help as there was no well thought out waste management plan for a rapidly growing population of broom owners. 

The broom however had one big advantage over the hoovers which started to increase in numbers in the 1980s. They were hand operated devices needing no electricity. They were cheap and bio degradable.

In the late 1980s just like a broom tied by a weak cord, things began to fall apart in the country and the Cities slowly acquired the ugliness that filth bequeaths. Once the centre cannot hold, the people left the countries in droves and many found themselves in UK where houses had carpets to help conserve heat in winter.

Like most recent immigrants, there is a pining for home and the Nigerian broom was best equipped to ease home sickness. People swear blind that a Naija Igbale reaches places on the floor that the Dyson cyclone bag less vacuum cleaner can only dream about.

However Naija brooms raise, dust and house dust mites. When the Igbale is in full flow, if you have asthma, hide ya face!

In Lagos I recall people slinging carpets over the walls and beating the life out of its fibres raising dust. At least when done outside the wind takes the dust away. In the UK sweeping carpets with the windows closed means the dust is inhaled.

I just don’t like brooms when Dysons or Hoovers exist. At least for carpet cleaning. But an immigrant must travel home weekly albeit psychologically. Play that old Naija beat, sing and sweep like one is in Lagos. I suppose it provides a psychological therapy that goes beyond how clean the carpet fibres are after the house cleaning.

Cooking Ewedu with brooms always gives me that fear that a splinter will escape into the soup and get lodged in the gullet of someone who will end up needing chest surgery.

For those in Nigeria with uncertain electric power supply, hold tight to the broom. This broom was invented by the ancestors of yore and designed for the huts and compounds of centuries gone by. In today’s world the broom should have been obsolete by now but it lives on as light no dey.