Help, parrot has swallowed this week’s article meant for my column

Where are those Ifa priests in Ile-Ife, Osun State, or Ogwugwu Akpu soothsayers in Okija, Anambra State? Brothers and Sisters in Crisis, I think someone should run to them with cowries, naira, dollar, euro or anything money can buy to find out what on earth is happening in our dear country and to know when we shall be free from it.
The other day it was the story of a snake swallowing, with one gulp, N36 million belonging to Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), now it is gorilla or chimpanzee or something that resembles them swallowing N6.8 million belonging to the Kano Zoological Gardens. Already, the state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has ordered the state Anti-Corruption Commission to hold their next meeting inside the entrails of all the gorillas in the zoo in order to find out which of them swallowed the N6.8 million.
“The order was given last Friday and the commission has already swung into action,” a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr Abba Anwar, said on Sunday in Kano. It quoted the governor as directing the commission to look into the immediate and remote circumstances surrounding the allegation and “unearth everything surrounding the incident”. Brothers and Sisters in Crisis, I think we are under attacks by creatures from the netherworld – animals and birds.
If you call them witches, na you sabi. If you call them wizards, na wetin concern me? But all I know is, from the look of things our country and its inhabitants are under serious attacks by humans-turned-animals-and-birds or animals-and-birds-turned-humans, take it whichever you understand. Otherwise, why should all these financial calamities continue to be committed by animals and birds of the passage (?). I wonder. When did Nigeria turn into George Orwell’s Animal Farm: some animals are equal but some are more equal than others?
Just early this week while I was thinking what topic to write on, a parrot of beautiful plumage flew into my studies and asked what I intend to write about this week. I didn’t talk to it; you should know why. It is all about parrots and their way of talking as if dem put pepper for dem mouth. I didn’t want the impudent bird to carry whatever it is I am writing about to you guys before I finished writing. That’s why I didn’t open my mouth to talk to it.
It asked again without getting any answer from me. Do you know that I didn’t know that parrots are eagle-eyed too? I wouldn’t know how it sighted my article this week which, as you might have guessed is on the report from Kano about gorilla from the state-owned zoo swallowing up the N6.8 million generated by the management as gate fees from visitors to the garden, during the Eid-el-Fitr (Ramadan) celebrations.
The moment the parrot noticed that I was writing on the Kano gorilla-money-swallowing saga, you won’t believe what happened. It angrily attacked my laptop screen with unbelievable alacrity and vehemence. No matter how I tried to chase it away, it came at it, again and again until the whole write-up, a thought-provoking article I had written on the matter, was gone.
First, it attacked the indefinite articles in the write-up, I mean, the ‘a’s and an’s’. On its first swoop, it made sure it wiped them out completely. While I was wondering what type of witch-parrot is this, it moved over to the definite article in its second swoop. As I was wondering what hit me, it came back again and attacked the nouns and swallowed them up in one gulp. In its next foray, it attacked the adjectives. On and on like that it continued coming back to attack one part of speech or the other until all the article was wiped out, leaving only a blank space.
Brothers and Sisters, to what do we ascribe this? What on earth is happening in our obodo Nigeria? I mean, how can a parrot swallow up a whole newspaper write-up, hook, line and sinker, or better still, noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition and interjection? I am stupefied and surprised. Whoever heard such a thing before? We are in a very big trouble in this country o.
Someone should issue me with a visa to any country of his choice. I mean, I am tired. Although I am not Andrew, I am ready to check out of this gaddem country, man! Now, with all the articles, definite and indefinite, all the pronouns, personal and impersonal, singular and plural, all the adjectives, descriptive and attributive, comparative and non-comparative, of colour and non-colour, possessive, coordinating and demonstrative, verbs, active and inactive, active and passive, auxiliary and main, regular and irregular, transitive and non-transitive, di-transitive and double transitive, copular and non-copular, tense, aspect and modality, adverbs, prepositional and pronominal, comparative and non-comparative, demonstratives and determiners, intensifiers and interjections, swallowed up by the witch-parrot, from where do I get letters of English alphabet that I can use to begin to write all over again, this week’s article?
Brothers and Sisters in Crisis, I come here to advise caution in our relationship with animals and birds. Otherwise, from our experience so far, I see someone’s domestic goat swallowing up a whole pot of soup full of meat, fish, brokoto, snails, periwinkles, vegetables and stockfish. I see a catfish from someone’s fish pond swallowing ATM cards, airtime cards, airline flight tickets, driver’s licence and international passports.
I see a cow munching human beings, bones and all, along with grasses in villages, towns and railway stations across the country. In these days of collapsed buildings, I see rummaging pigs at dumpsites using their snouts to move, right from their foundations, four-storey buildings from Isale Eko to Victoria Island or Gwarimpa, Abuja. I see a cockroach playing melodious country or soul music from someone’s piano or keyboard while he or she is deep asleep in the night. I see church rats playing conga, drums, guitar, clarinet, grand piano, saxophone and trumpet during praise-worship sessions. I see chickens from someone’s poultry, broilers and layers/hatchers, swallowing up bullion vans headed towards Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
As a matter of fact, I see a big python from South East (is it also part of the Egwu Eke, Python Dance Part 3?) collapsing all the banks in Nigeria into one, plus Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and swallowing all the local and foreign currencies in them and wiping its mouth thereafter as if nothing happened. I see a big vulture swallowing up all the dead bodies in private and public mortuaries in the country. In Nigeria, wonders can never end. So what do you see?