First Sister writes a letter
It was written by His Excellency the Governor’s younger sister. It was on her computer-generated letter-headed paper and her signature was imprinted at the bottom, above her name. The letter stated:“Dear Your Excellency, you will be surprised to see this letter from me. It is because all the students in my school are saying that […]
It was written by His Excellency the Governor’s younger sister. It was on her computer-generated letter-headed paper and her signature was imprinted at the bottom, above her name. The letter stated:
“Dear Your Excellency, you will be surprised to see this letter from me. It is because all the students in my school are saying that this is the season of letter writing and that anyone who has a grouse against her parent, guardian, brother, husband or boyfriend should write a letter to that person and spell out what has been worrying her. That is why I am writing this letter to you as my elder brother and guardian.
You are my brother, of the same father and the same mother but look at how you have been treating me. Who will ever believe that my own brother is the Governor of Tafki State? My own brother! Sometimes I cannot even afford three square meals a day in the campus. My friends are even tired of lending meal tickets to me. I have borrowed meal tickets from so many students, always promising to pay the next day. Sometimes when I see one of my creditors coming as I am walking towards the lecture hall, I must divert to another route. What kind of embarrassment is this?
The cloth that I am wearing, is this what I am supposed to be wearing as your sister? A whole Governor’s sister and I still shop for my cloth at the local market. I even hurry to the market when I hear that the goods have just arrived because they are cheapest that time, before other girls hear of their arrival and start rushing for them. Am I not supposed to be shopping in Dubai and in Europe? Your own daughters, is it not in America that you send them to shop? Imagine my own nieces coming back from California and London, telling stories about Harrods Store and Wal Mart and spoting the latest fashionable clothes from Gucci, Louis Vitton and Versace while I still go to the local market to get my cloth.
My nieces [your daughters] are always talking about where they will go next on holiday. They have already holidayed in sunny Spain, they went to Hawaii, they went to the Caribbeans and even Seychelles and Galapagos. Only yesterday I heard them saying that they are tired of going to Europe, that during their next holiday they will go to the Australian Outback. They said there is a safari tour there where they will go and catch kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devil and saltwater crocodiles.
Me, which holiday did you ever send me? It is only once that I accompanied Auntie First Lady [your wife] to Dubai. Even that one, I heard from some people that you only added me in her delegation, because she was going for a medical check and that it was possible they will transplant a donated organ on her and they want an organ from her relative. That was why you put me in the trip, in case they want to take somebody’s kidney and give to her, the aides will point at me and say I am her relative by marriage, so the doctors should take from me.
Did you give me any money for that trip? I saw everybody spending money freely, but I didn’t have any money to spend. I heard rumours before we left here that everybody was given an estacode but that First Lady collected my own. She did not give it to me and you, my own brother, you did not give me a kobo. When everybody was shopping at Dubai Mall, I was just watching. It was only when we were about to come back that First Lady gave me some Dirhams and said I should go to Deira market and buy something, because it was the slum part of Dubai and things there were cheap.
Look at even the school I am attending. During this ASUU strike, I was sitting at home for five months while your daughters were going to a private university. You even wanted to send them abroad; it was our mother who told you not to send them abroad since they are girls. Otherwise they would have been in an American university by now, while I am attending a government university here at home. Four years now, I am still in Level Two because ASUU goes on strike every year. My niece that started behind me, is already going to Level Four now and I am still in Level Two.
I know you don’t wish me well because when your Commissioner came and said he wanted to marry me, you did cabinet reshuffle and removed him, so he stopped coming to see me. Some people told me that you don’t want me to get married because your own daughters cannot find husbands. Nobody wants to marry them because people say they are full of themselves because their father is the Governor.
Anyway, I leave everything in the hands of God. Since you are not the one who is in charge of the air we are breathing, you cannot stop me from getting what God said will be mine.”
Everybody in the club was shaking his head after reading the letter. They were saying, “Ehn! His Excellency is a terrible man! So, this is how he treated his own sister! Terrible!” But I was chuckling to myself. No one knew the real source of the letter except three people. The boy in the university who wrote it, Maikahon Karo and me! It was Maikaho’s idea that we should throw the Governor off balance for the rest of this year, so he went and found one brilliant boy who wrote the letter and we settled him very well after he swore to an oath of secrecy.
When I tuned in to the state television station that night, I saw the Governor’s sister, surrounded by a battery of the Governor’s aides. She was trembling and weeping and swearing by the Holy Qur’an that she was not the one who wrote the letter. Haha! The poor girl is telling the truth!