Wednesday, October 6

Nigeria - Five & Nought

If I were 50 years old, still living with my parents, unmarried and no kids, job-hopping, bed-hopping and unable to pay at least for my B&B, I’d check myself into a mental facility. Voluntarily - and request the new brain disease to be named after me, and asked not be checked-out until the end of life, because apparently there would be no cure for me.

If I were 50 years old and as at this point, MJ(rest his soul) had nothing on me by way of skin colourations and the trauma of leaving a 4-year old with a colouring book full of beautiful penciled drawings and nothing but black and white crayons, I’d check myself into an Inferiority Complex Anonymous Rehab Centre.

If I were 50 years old and on my birthday, my family members tried to kill me by blowing up my mortgaged car, it’d finally dawn on me that there was something truly and terribly wrong with me and that nobody really wanted me around or cared about me – in fact they hated my guts – and I’d do everything humanly possible to make amends by checking myself into the church and bleeding my eyes out in prayer.

I am half of 50 and am not yet a woman. I’d bag a Ph.D in post-teenage issues, snag an award for holding on to the last shreds of tomboyish behaviour and win the Doctors’ Guild Research Award for Best Guinea Pig for the Studies In Transformation to Womanhood.

I am half of 50, and I work a 7-5 job, that can’t pay me half a year’s worth of rent at a go, can’t feed me for half a month and can’t let me go shopping in Mango’s, House of Farrah or even Swatch. Unless of course my shopping is adjectized by “window”.

When I am 50, I will sit my kids at Christmas and in one of those moments when we’ve just had a good laugh and there really is nothing to fill the space, I’ll recall the good ol’ days and recount them to my kids thus: did you know that once upon a time in Nigeria, there was such a thing called NEPA(what you call PHCN) and we never had regular light? And they’d exclaim with eyeballs about to pop, NOOO WAY!

When I am 50, I’d be retired by choice and concentrate fully on my job as Honourable Mrs Somebody, celebrating my second term in office, with an after-work party. I would shut my eyes as I blew out 50 candles and instead of making a wish, I’d offer a silent prayer of thanks to God for the fairness of the election that brought me into this office.

When I am 50, my first child would be ready for college, I wouldn’t have to worry about knowing someone that knows someone that knows someone. His JAMB score would have, by default, (of course, he inherited my IQ and then some) qualified him for on-the-spot admission, and I wouldn’t have to worry about brown-enveloping the VC, his P.A. and his P.A.’s messenger for that to happen. His educational fund, it would then occur to me, about 60% of it, would have to be put to better use. I would only have to worry about just which of the universities to send him to. You might not consider it a tough job, but when there’s a World’s Top 100 Universities List in front of you, and at least 25 of the 40 spots belonging to Nigeria are staring you in the face, each struggling to outshine the other with scholarship offers, what to do?

When I am 50, and too much vodka & cranberry juice have washed away indelible bits of consciousness and common sense, I’ll stagger down the hallway to my room, forgetting to lock my door (Aisha left it half-open on her way out, consumed only by her own stupor) and wake up to find my door blown wide open by the railing North East wind, and my Super Double HD 65’ screen still in place, my laptop still in sleep mode and everything else exactly as I left it.

When I am 50, and I roll my eyes at hubby insisting on catching the news highlights before I settle in to the newest animation, we’d be just in time to catch Munita Rajpal or her younger replacement reporting that, “ . . . for the first time ever, an African nation has been declared the most desirable nation on earth to live in . . . after the break we’ll find out why . . .”

Nigeria.

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