The benefits of the disposable nappy were many, among them being that it saved the brand new mother or her usually overworked maid  the drudgery of washing countless nappies everyday. As time went on, somebody else had the idea of producing disposable nappy that is held in place, not with one of those outsize and lethal looking “safety pins” but with Velcro. This removed the danger of the newborn baby being stabbed in the abdomen with a pin.

The only known problem with a disposable nappy (apart from the money that is being literally thrown into dustbins or flush down toilets) is how to get rid of the napkin and its content. Anyone who has ever tired to, knows that nothing should be regarded as disposable until it has actually and firmly been disposed of.

Disposable nappies did not exist by the time I put babyhood behind me nearly three score and ten years ago, so I  had no personal experience of them. My earliest recollection of having anything to do with a disposable object was during the nine months I was between secondary school and university, in 1952. I had got myself employed by an oil storage company at Apapa and, at the end of each month the pay  clerk would hand me an envelope containing what economists and other such experts like to refer to as my “disposable income” - disposable in the sense of being available for us if needed. Well, I can say, with my hand on my heart, that I have never received any disposable income, not during that period in 1952, and not since then. As I remember my income never seemed to be available for use when  needed. Not enough of it anyway.

I have also seen or been told about other objects that seemed to be designed to be got rid of after being sued once. At the start of what may forever remain our “nascent” democracy, it was rumoured that,  tin order to facilitate their own disposability, ministers, commissioners and top bureaucrats were required, upon being appointed, to sign undated letters of resignation that could be used when oga wanted to dispose of them.

There is also another form of involuntary resignation practised in Nigeria’s royal circles. Here is an extreme example. In a part of this country, traditional rulers used to come with built-in obsolescence. As the ruler prepared to ascend the throne of his ancestors (as the expression goes) a few thing should be made quite clear to him, one of which was that his reign would only last for a pre-determined. At the end of that  period he would be told that, like it or not, he must join his ancestors, upon which he was expected to retire to his bedchamber, accepted the waiting cup of hemlock, and die a kingly death. After the prescribed period of mourning the dry-eyed kingmakers would select a successor and install him on the same terms and conditions. To me it was always a wonder that anyone would step forward to succeed a ruler that had just been dispatched in such circumstances. Surely he must be aware that the same fate awaited him. The only plausible explanation is that, for princes who are in direct line of succession, it is all a matter of noblesse oblige. Their royal birth carried with it an obligation to die on schedule.

While we are on the subject, we may also take a look at disposable faces, which are for those who are fugitives from justice and need a change of identity, or those who are afraid to look their age, and want whatever face they happen to be wearing at a given time to look like new - which, let’s face it, it is. It is called face lifting and is, I understand, very much in vogue in Nigeria these days.

I have no idea of how it is done. I know of only one person in my circle who has endured a face lift. She is sixty-ish trying to look forty-ish. She should have saved herself the trouble. The first time she appeared at a wedding party with her new face she was instantly recognised by everyone present, much to her chagrin. What is the use she must have asked herself, of disposing of your old face if people easily recognise you when you have the new face on?

That kind of problem didn’t bother me the day two of my grandsons, after taking a critical look at the network of furrows that were deeply etched into my forehead, decided that something should be done about it. So they attempted to rub the wrinkles off with their palms. The attempt failed signally, and I was saved the future embarrassment of having to identity myself to my firms, and having to explain what on earth I had done to myself.

An then are disposable drivers. They were common in the mid-1950s, when my contemporaries were getting their first “senior service” jobs, their first motorcars, and their first drivers.

In those days the law against driving a motor vehicle without first being “under instruction” for a minimum of three months and then taking a rigorous driving test, was strictly enforced. And because driving was a pleasure, not the pain and nightmare it has become, it was the fervent wish of every car owner to learn to drive as soon as possible. And it was always understood by all concerned that a driver’s first responsibility, from the day he was employed, was to make himself redundant within the shortest possible time. As a result every sixth car on the road had an “L” sign prominently displayed front and back, signifying that the person at the wheel was a “learner.” Three months after being employed the driver would be told that his services were no longer required, and he would be off, in search of a new car owner who wanted to learn to drive.

The cars themselves were disposable. Not counting the wrecks that filled the ditches along the Lagos-Shagamu highway senior civil servants had access to easy loans and generous car allowances, and so they aimed to replace their cars after about four or five years.

Spouses (and I am using the word loosely now) frequently get disposed of, with divorce courts only getting involved when either party wants the knot that has been tied to be untied. The most bizarre example of spouses being treated as disposable objects involved a man who discarded them at the rate of three or four every year. I have told my friends this story somewhere before, and I think it will bear retelling here.

The man’s name was (let us say) Julius. He was a well-to-do honorary chief, and owned a successful forwarding and clearing business. And he developed a taste for what he referred to as “unspoiled” women, meaning the kind who always did as they were told. And what he usually told them was that they must show evidence of pregnancy within four months of moving in with him, or get out. By way of explanation he would tell them about his being an only child, and how, before his father died he had made Julius promise to have as many children as possible. “To keep the family name alive, you see?”

If he was asked how many children he already had, he would attempt a mental calculation, then give up with a laugh and say: “I don’t know; where I come from we don’t count our children.” And then he would self-righteously add: “The thing about me is that it doesn’t matter whether the baby you have is a boy or a girl. A child is a child as far as I am concerned.”

I was in a hospital, a situation that always puts the fear of God in me, so in answering his question I had to choose my words carefully.