Once upon a time, not in a fairy tale, but in real life before smartphones became our second hearts and Wi-Fi was as important as oxygen, there was a world where information didn’t live in the clouds. It lived in people. Yes, human beings! There was a time when, if you didn’t know something, you asked. You didn’t “Google it”; you “Se ìwádìí it”.
If you needed a proverb, you didn’t search online, you searched offline, as in, you physically looked for Baba Saka, Baba Taju, or Mama Ronke, sat beside them on a wooden stool, and listened. And oh, how they delivered! With eyes half-closed and a kolanut in hand, Baba Saka would begin with, “O káre láyé ‘mọdé yìí, ìtumọ̀ òwe ọ̀hún rèé…” You’d better have your ears sharp and your heart ready. Because what followed was wisdom, coated in parables, marinated in experience, and grilled with humour.
Now, I ask you… are we wiser now?
Back then, if you missed the evening news on NTA Ibadan, well, you waited for your neighbour’s gist the next morning at Mama Nkechi’s àkàrà stand. “Did you hear what they said about SAP?” someone would whisper. “Obasanjo is coming again o!” another would reply, eyes wide. That was breaking news, and it broke with flair!
If you had a school project in the 90s, you took your feet, those God-given search engines.. and went to the library. The librarian, Mrs. Fashanu, with her owl-like glasses and tight bun, was the original algorithm. “Go to shelf three, under ‘History of West Africa’, volume two.” And God help you if you returned a book late, she’d scold you in English, Yorùbá, and sometimes even sprinkle in some French for added punishment. “Tu es toujours en retard! You this boy!”
Now, we live in a world where 8-year-olds say things like, “Alexa, what’s the capital of Togo?” Meanwhile, we used to chant it out loud with our classmates:
“Lomé
is the capital of To-go, Yessir!”
We played outside until the streetlights blinked twice. We got into arguments like:
“Michael Jackson is older than Lionel Richie!”
“No o, Lionel Richie sang before him!”
We didn’t just Google it. We debated, we argued, we bet Caprisones.
We survived by remembering. By storytelling. Auntie Bunmi would sit you down on hot Saturday afternoons and narrate village tales where tortoise was always up to something mischievous, and hare was never far behind. These stories weren’t just to kill boredom; they carried morals, values, and a good belly laugh.
Even directions were given with drama:
“Ehn, when you get to that big mango tree that leans like it wants to fall but has not fallen since Shagari’s time, turn left. If you pass the house that always smells like ewedu, you’ve gone too far.”
And somehow, we still found our way.
We wrote letters and waited weeks for replies. My cousin once sent a love letter to his girlfriend in Abeokuta. By the time the letter got there, she was already dating someone else and pregnant. But did he give up? No. He picked up a biro, wrote another letter, and added a photograph this time. True love always finds a way, even if NIPOST takes its time.
Today, we have everything…. Google, ChatGPT, YouTube, Siri, Wikipedia, but we’ve lost something too. That human warmth. That personal touch. That time Mama would say, “Come here, let me show you how to cook ofe akwu,” and not, “Just watch it on TikTok.”
I’m not saying tech is bad. Heck, I’m typing this on a laptop with 47 tabs open. But sometimes, it’s nice to remember. To sit with someone older and hear their story. To ask questions not just for answers, but for connection.
Because long before Google, we survived with each other.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the better search engine all along.
Ayé ń lọ, à ń tọ̀ ọ́. .. because if you know, you know.
Published June 21, 2025
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