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Someone saw me the other day with onyokometer (magnifying glass) and asked me, an agbalagba (elderly man), what I was doing with it. To add salt on the injury he already caused with his first question, he followed it up by asking whether I was preparing for Biology Practical, which took place last Wednesday, in the ongoing West African School Certificate exam.
Trust me. I didn’t talk to him. Initially, I didn’t even look his way. I behaved as if I didn’t hear what he said or the questions he asked. I waited till I’d gotten sufficiently angry to look at his face. And, by the time I did, the fellow just disappeared from my sight. He just vapourised into the thin, or is it thick? air. I didn’t even care to know where he disappeared to or which direction he went.
Imagine such effrontery, such an insult! How could somebody with his abuna in right places, have such boldness to ask me what I was doing with magnifying glass. I have been busy trying to solve una wahala.
The President is busy wracking his brains and trying to select, out of the many names submitted to him, both real and fake, the men and women who will make up his next Federal cabinet, who would sit with him at the Federal Executive Council (FEC), and you are asking what I was doing with magnifying glass. In your village, town or city, the young (yawning?) don’t help the elderly people, abi?
While the President escaped somewhere, to London or so, to run away from political office lobbyists, so that he can have time to go through the list of possible appointees with him, I too have been busy in the past few weeks going through possible names of political appointees in the next Federal Executive Council, the one that will, insha Allah, take us to the Next Level (of suffering, poverty and hardship?)
Of course, you know why I do so. Despite the fact that we had to wait, six months or so, for the same list in the last exercise done in 2015, we still produced from it names of dead people, especially in the area of appointments into the boards of Federal parastatals. That’s why you see me going about with magnifying glass. I am not preparing for Biology Practical, you sufferhead (apologies to Fela).
I simply don’t want any dead person’s name to appear in the next cabinet. This time around we are not going to leave anything to chances, whether one-chance, or two-chances or three-chances or no-chance. I and I been fooling around for too long (apologies to Majek Fashek). So long, too long!
So? With the magnifying glass, I am trying to make sure that my grandmother’s name, Lolo Susannah Omasiridiya Okorie, who died in nineteen kiridim, does not appear in the list of the next cabinet as Minister of Petroleum, or Finance, or something like that. Or, that somebody does not just wake up from one of the graves or cemeteries somewhere in Mbaise, Mbano or Ogbomosho or Igbomina, to submit the name of my late grandfather, Nze Okorie Abanobi, as the next Minister of Aviation or Power.
Don’t ask me again why I am walking about with magnifying glass. You know. I don’t want anybody to wake up my mother’s eldest sister, Mama Margaret Nwaehie (whom we all call Nnenne Maggi) of Umueze 11 in Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State, who passed on to the great beyond at the ripe age of 90-something years and ask her to go and pass through screening at the Lawan or is it Ndume-led Senate leadership in the next political dispensation, as Minister of Thread (Trade), Con-Mass (Commerce?) and Indoor Treat (Industry?).
Brothers and Sisters in Crisis, please, don’t leave the job of selecting members of the next Federal Executive Council in the hands of our Presido alone. We must all be involved. Even if it means rewriting Emeka’s Odumegwu Ojukwu’s mini-memoirs, Because I am Involved, all over again, in order to get involved, we must do so. From now on, I urge each of us to carry along with him or her, a magnifying glass wherever we go, MTN or no MTN.
Come o, bring your ear closer to my mouth and let me whisper something into it. Who do you think that we should appoint as Minister of Power, Housing and Works? We appointed the first one. They call him Babatunde Raji Fashola. He was supposed to be the Okunrin Meta (three persons rolled into one) in the outgoing cabinet. But he neither tuned up the power nor fashed us ola (money). To worsen it all, he left us un-metred and embittered. So, I think the next appointee should be Okunrin merin (four persons rolled into one) so that he would be able to perform. So, who do you think will fit the bill?
How about Minister of Transport? (we don’t want anybody that will transport us from the air, sea or land to our untimely graves?) Minister of Petroleum (let’s look for someone who will reduce it from the present pump price, N145, to, at least, N2 per litre), Minister of Finance (NYSC must show us the person’s certificate before he or she is sworn in), Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aviation, etc? We must find credible replacements for the outgoing crop of Federal Executive Council members. Or, what do you think?
Note: reactions from readers are welcomed: For SMS, use 08111813046; for WhatsApp message, use 08034041645; for email, send to: [email protected]
How I was summoned to NASS for losing weight
Thank you, Chika Abanobi, for this apt satirical response to Mr. President’s gallow humour. I do not know when losing weight became a criterion for being seriously engrossed in tackling security .- 2347033331466
I’m one of your readers. I’m a jobless graduate as a result of impaired hearing problem. Because of this I always suffer from hunger. I need money not only for upkeep but to also solve the hearing problem. – 2348116279891
Who asked the way to Yari’s recession venue?
Thank you for your Saturday tonic. Mr. Yari is a confused man. I remember he once said that the federal government should his state a state of emergency. That should tell you his level of reasoning. -2348028606046
I don’t ‘poor-loot’ (pollute?)
Chika Abanobi, I think the poor should pity the rich since the fathers (governors) who are meant to care for them are robbing their subjects. Those who hunt for ladies’ pants, child traffickers and human parts sellers are poor-looters that deserve no pity.
Pastor Chris Uzodinma, Aboh Mbaise, Imo State, 2348128924311
