By: Adebayo AbdulRahman Adedayo
Fellow Nigerians (apologies to Apostle Maradona),
My initial plan was to start by digging into the long, uninspiring, and commendably controversial tortoise story of how Flora Lugard, a journalist and the wife of one of our colonial masters, against our will, helped exploit our natural resources for the benefit of their country and our – no, their country again.
But the urgency of the matters at hand won’t allow me to dive into how the name ‘Nigeria’ was painfully coined because we are now at that point where we can’t establish who is presiding over the country between President Naira Marley – the ever-active Twitter tormentor, Abba Kyari – the Irunmole that eats kilishi and signs presidential letters, and General Muhammadu Buhari – the ever-smiling gentleman who introduced Kopid One-Nine Pirus without talking.
Fast forward several days without any confirmed presidential address despite various unconfirmed presidential skits on Kopid One-Nine Pirus, the baba we parade as President in Nigeria has decided to remain incommunicado.
Various calls by the netizens and Twitterati of the social media sphere have gone straight into voicemail, and messages sent to his official line were delivered but not replied.
It’s like calling the official phone number of God when you need him to direct you, but God decides to sit in a clothed rock, looking straight at you eyeball-to-eyeball, and smiling at your predicament with a mask covering his nose.
But when I pray or urge you to pray that ‘may Nigeria never happen to you’, you might be doubting what I mean, the same way you doubted the false – no, first case of coronavirus but believed the first – no, false presidential announcement on coronavirus not knowing it was a speech by the Parosident to declare the discovery of Kopid One-Nine Pirus.
The issue is that if Nigeria should happen to you, if the governor of a state makes a mistake that can make the life of millions never remain the same, some people will defend him saying he has the constituted authority to pour new waters in the land as an ‘omi tuntun’. If the governor now apologises, those people will not only celebrate him, they will also write a long essay to congratulate him on a well-delivered apology speech.
See, if Nigeria should happen to you, you will know the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus – an imported disease, in your country but the statistics of people already infected by the locally made pirus, Kopid One-Nine, will be unknown to everyone including the man who claims he is working with the ministry of health to solve it.
Are you confused? Obviously not, because an attempt to get yourself tested to know if you have been infected by coronavirus can in a cheetah-like speed be declined just because you don’t have a travel history. In other words, only those with international passports have the exclusive right to know if they have been infected by the international virus.
Wait for it: If Nigeria should happen to you, you will have only five pregnancy test strips to confirm whether any of your about 200 million patients are carrying a Chinese-made virus or a Nigerian-made pirus.
So fellow Nigerians, in a bid to ensure we don’t get infected by any of the great attributes of the word ‘Nigeria’, we must ensure that we keep praying to the almighty that may Nigeria never happen to us.
In fact, anytime we pray for our dear country in this period of public or self-isolation (as the case may be), we must remember to pray that ‘may Nigeria never happen to Nigeria’ because if that should happen, we would end up having a president hiding from his people because he is yet to conclude his classes on how to correctly pronounce coronavirus and COVID-19.
