RE: ONE AT A TIME

Mujahid A. S. Ameenuddeen: Indeed a very sorry story. I suggest you should have first reported the e-door to the police so that they will have First Information Report FIR to support your suit. And then i suggest you seek help to solve what the e-door insinuated. I for one have another way for you, […]

Mujahid A. S. Ameenuddeen: Indeed a very sorry story. I suggest you should have first reported the e-door to the police so that they will have First Information Report FIR to support your suit. And then i suggest you seek help to solve what the e-door insinuated. I for one have another way for you, since your doctor has failed: You should pray 70 rakaats of 2 units per night; in each rakaat recite 2 hizbs; and do that for forty days. Do not eat red meat and don’t take milk except fresh one, same as you may have in your original Ruga. I will be waiting to hear from you about the progress.

 Ibrahim Mohammed, Jos: Mallam, your experience at Finbank’s e-door was indeed funny, and your conceptualisation of the experience is of course a masterpiece and interesting. I admire your feeling for the polo horse and caddy. I wish our leaders could feel for the masses. Anyway, I would advise you to have a change of scene if you really want to reduce your size. If you could, just relocate to a rural area. You would there find hunger and deprivation as veritable panacea to your size so that when next you go to Finbank with your kokara (not golf club now) you can pass through the e-door unnoticed.

 Vicky Sylvester, University of Abuja: I have been reading you but it never clicked till this morning that it is indeed you. I took a break from a collection of poetry (Odia Ofeimun’s Anthology) and read your One At A Time, Please.I can’t believe it is you! I can’t imagine you being this big as the e-door to notice! No Bala, not the person I knew early 1980s when I was the State Editor of the Nigeria Standard in Kano. Do something!

 AB Mukhtar: Since you don’t want to play golf, I think you should try football. I will suggest the position of halfback No. 5. Not much work. I however suggest that you don’t play referee. That will be too much for you. Hope when you are done the e-door will keep mute when you enter its territory.

 Barr. Muhammad Sani Yunus: And I will volunteer to be your lawyer in case you institute an action against that Finbank e-door. And it will be pro bono.

SS Mai’Adua: Ubangidana, ina jin wannan satin baka da muhimmin abin fada mana, shi yasa kayi ta kamo nan kamo can. Muna fata sati mai zuwa mu ga canji, dan ni dan kai nake sayen jaridar.

A huta lafiya. (I think this week you have nothing tangible to tell us, that is why you have been beating about the bush here and there. We hope next week we will see some change, because I buy this newspaper because of this column. Good bye.)

Barr. Danlami Wushishi: Having read your piece, I gladly construe that the information so contained is a brief to enable me prepare documents to be filed. No-win-no-fee!

Nana Nafisa ‘Karambana’, Lagos: I really loved what you wrote on that e-door. It was really funny. But wait, don Allah are you really that big? Why not give us a full-length picture of yourself on our page so we can judge whether the e-door was right? Or wrong?

Dr. A. Ahmad: Just read “One At A Time!” Very hilarious, chilling, factual, incisive, educating and nerve-soothing. May Allah preserve you.

Barr. Jamila Mohammed: Bala Muhammad ke nan! I have always been on the left: though I have nothing against those rich people and their golf clubs, I have a thing against their polo. As for you, take walks and cut down on the calorie intake. Go back to the nomadic way of life. But one at a time, please!

Baba Halilu Dantiye: Corrigendum! Kindly note that it was Sabo Bakinzuwo’s Government that wanted to take over the Kano Golf Club, not Rimi’s. The Government was resisted and was taken to court by a group led by the late Alhaji Audu Lukat. This is just for the records.

 Dr. Jimpat Aiyelangbe, MD Lafiya Surgery, Kano: My dear Bala. Just avoid eating after 7pm. Eat all you want before 7pm…then nothing until breakfast next morning, except water of course. Your Fula genes will actually help you throw away the excess, and that dumb contraption in the bank will just shut up. And, ehm, please send a fat cow as consultation fee.

Ibrahim Garba: Your write-up is more a grouse against us golfers than against the embarrassment caused you by that e-door. We golfers will first take you to court for attacking us. Well done, e-door!

AND FINALLY, in the absence of anything tangible to tell you, let me tell you this beating about the English bush:

 The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that:

 In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

 There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.  

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the fourth yer, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas!