Wanted! A heart of stone

 i need a heart transplant, and this is no joke. It’s not that my heart is weak, it’s just that compared with most of my compatriots, my aortic valve appears to be made of a squeamish material. I would’ve loved to subpoena a Naija politrician to will his heart to me, but they seem to […]

 i need a heart transplant, and this is no joke. It’s not that my heart is weak, it’s just that compared with most of my compatriots, my aortic valve appears to be made of a squeamish material. I would’ve loved to subpoena a Naija politrician to will his heart to me, but they seem to live forever. By the time they finally make it to the grave, the tissues are calcified.

If you think I am lying, take a roll call of who is who in Naija politrics since forever. Apart from the so-called fathers of the nation, the same people have been recycling themselves since eternity. So why do we complain that our nation is not making progress. These set of politricians have schooled, traded and travelled all over the developed world seeing the best but learning nothing.

I am talking of smooth roads, health care, social welfare, education, insurance – name it. If they have a headache at midnight, they know the residence of the entry clearance officer for emergency visas to the best hospitals abroad. Their favourite place to go and die is – abroad, not where Oshiomole was trying to sentence that poor widow.

But you can’t really blame them now can you? Naija sights and sounds cannot serenade you to a rich man’s heaven. You are on your deathbed, sorry; I meant you were taking your aristo for a cruise around Ondo State only to come across the bizarre and the curious a boy being pulled out of a concrete wall looking like a specimen from Ethiopia’s famine. You feel like calling your shrink to double check your level of sanity. This is 2016, not 1816 – how did a boy get buried in old concrete? Suddenly you remember that in a real country, there would have been an ambulance and paramedics in sight. None here.

You quickly wind up your side mirrors, ask your driver to step on the gas remembering that in Australia, when a snake slithers into a basement, animal rescue are called for its safe evacuation. But here is a human being, and not a medic in sight. The sight of people pouring water on the poor thing makes you rev up your engine and go home to watch something less tasking on your conscience.

Perhaps you were in Uyo, the headquarters of child witches and a potential child exorcist plans to ordain the governor, a license to impunity. Certain that celebrities attract motley crowds; he had instructed the builders to make the site ready. The experts warn that this cannot be rushed, but he reminds them that David Oyedepo heard such news and used scriptures to break the rules and enter into the Guinness Book of Records, although he doesn’t appear to drink the stuff. So, if you can’t be the winner in Ota, be a reigner in Uyo.

In Europe and America where you usually spend your annual vacation, an uncompleted building is usually out of bound to anyone not wearing appropriate helmets and boots. But this is Uyo, in Naija, Africa! European dogs are worth more in insurance payouts than child witches and exorcism is a goldmine. The governor knows that and so do the miracle seekers who have come to see their, idol the governor who was last seen on the campaign train and not expected to be seen except on tv until the next one.

As you approach the site venue, you feel for your eardrums as a frenzied mob doped on prosperity preaching, jumping, stomping, and chanting halleluyah! They seem to cause an earth tremor akin to what must have cracked the walls of Jericho. Soon, people were scampering for dear lives; suddenly the seeming heaven-loving congregants are not quite ready to meet their maker and the site has caved crushing bones and cracking skulls.

Before you get to your hotel suite, social media is awash with disturbing pictures of mangled heads, broken bones and steel. Here is the state which built premier-league sized stadium for rats and cockroaches and the best hospital in Africa, except that it’s not been activated.

You drive back to your hotel room to see the tragedy unfold on TV. His Excellency the governor went for treatment first and returned to dig in the rubble knowing that he authorized the use of an unsafe environment for his inordinate ordination. This is the Uyo version of the Synagogue and the architect, not the avaricious bishop must be arrested and charged.

In the Rivers, which the APC must win at all costs, blood is flowing. A senior police officer and troupe are ambushed and decapitated. But before their relatives know, it’s splashed all over social media. This is not a preamble to a novel. It is Naija and you can’t be squeamish here. If you are and want to live here, then you need a heart transplant so that you can be like all the Joneses in Bubuland.