By Fr Pat. Amobi Chukwuma
The following phrase is inscribed on the front and rear plate numbers of engaged couples going to church to solemnize their marriage: “About to wed.” It is a case of “Omnia parata sunt.” That is, everything is ready. The church bell rings. The minister waits anxiously at the Sacristy for the arrival of the couple. All invited guests are entering the church gradually. The choir is already reciting their selected hymns.
The wedding vehicle with ‘about to wed’ couple seated behind is moving slowly with escorts to the church. The driver, the bride, the bridegroom, the best man and the bridesmaid occupy the decorated wedding vehicle. On arrival before the entrance of the church, the driver, the best man and the bridesmaid come down first. Then, the driver opens the back doors for the intending couple to come out majestically.
Then the best man and bridesmaid usher them into the church. As soon as it is time, the minister and the servers come out from the sacristy. Then the solemn procession to the altar begins. After the solemn wedding ceremony, the car plate numbers of the wedded couple changes to: “Just wedded.”
It happened that sometime ago, an about-to-wed couple was being driven to the church by a hired driver. Along the way, a hot disagreement broke out between the couple seating behind. The altercation ended up in violence. They pointed accusing fingers at each other like two mad dogs.
The angry bridegroom slapped the bride with seven stars coming out of her red eyes. With venom the bride bit off the left earlobe of the bridegroom. Blood oozed like water tap. The confused and helpless driver stopped sharply and shouted, “This bloody wedding is hereby suspended.” Angrily the driver went down and tore off the ‘about to wed’ plate number tags and replaced them with “About to die.”
Hurriedly he drove the wounded bride and bridegroom to the nearest hospital for urgent medical attention. Afterwards the hired driver went home sad. Indeed, the marriage died an emotional death on that spot.
For a long time now, our country Nigeria has been suffering from terminal diseases which included corruption, nepotism, election rigging, judicial rascality, bad governance, acute power failure, unbearable cost of living, hunger, anger, etc. The doctor treating all these terminal ailments has tried and failed woefully.
The sicknesses are becoming worse every day. The teeming hungry and angry youths announced a nationwide hunger protest. The President asked for more time to perform miracle in bringing the dying back to life. The impatient youths went on with the preannounced Endbadgovernance and Hunger protests nationwide. Due to desperation and acute hunger, some of the protesting youths in the North started looting public properties.
The Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces dispatched policemen and soldiers to control and confront the unarmed hungry youths. They threw tear gas at the hungry and angry youths. In some places, live bullets were fired at the protesting crowd. Some innocent lives were lost. As a result this, most of the protesters, out of fear of the unknown disappeared.
The President was compelled to make a nationwide broadcast with the theme: “I have heard you.” To hear is one thing; to act is another thing. If a mother hears the cry of her baby, she must act with dispatch to console the baby in distress. Mere saying, “Stop crying” is not enough. Instant breastfeeding is the solution.
A sick person goes to hospital for medical attention. In turn, he or she goes into the doctor’s consulting room to narrate to the doctor his or her painful experiences. With the knowledge of his medical training, the doctor diagnoses his patient’s complaints and proscribes some drugs or injections to bring the sickness under control.
The doctors’ motto is: “We care, but God heals.” It is a stupid doctor or quack that would tell the patient, “I have heard you, go home and get well.” The disappointed patient will be asking himself, “Is this a professional medical doctor or a professional killer?”
My people say that if handshake crosses the elbow, it turns automatically into a fight. Anything that reaches the climax has crossed the borderline. Joking has a limit. When we were doing one year apostolic work, after our philosophical four-year course as candidates to the priesthood, some of us were posted to teach in the junior seminary before proceeding to theology.
One of the junior teachers among us was popularly called “You think I am joking?” He cracks jokes but he does not joke in serious matters. The present hardship and hunger menace in Nigeria is no longer a joke. It is now a matter of life and death. Death is nothing but the failure of life. In fact life has no duplicate. Paper duplicating machines are available here and there.
Unfortunately, scientists and engineers till date are unable to manufacture life duplicating machines. Hence, life lost cannot be regained. If something urgent is not done, the teeming Nigerian hungry masses who are about to die will be tagged ‘just died.’
Our country Nigeria was founded in 1914 by Lord Lugard. He amalgamated all the territories around the River Niger and the divergent people living in them into one geographical entity and called it Nigeria. The amalgamation was given a trial of one hundred years and it automatically expired in 2014. Since then, no renegotiation has been done.
Thus things began to fall apart and the center can no longer hold. Local and foreign terrorists ceased the opportunity to unleash terror. They kill, maim and rape innocent people going about their daily businesses. Later, bandits and kidnappers joined the bloody group. For fear of being killed or kidnapped, many farmers no longer go to farms. Hunger set in.
To pour fuel into an inferno, the present leadership of Ahmed Bola Tinubu erroneously announced the removal of fuel subsidy on the very first day of his inauguration. From then till date, the prices of essential commodities are soaring higher and higher every day. The pump price of fuel currently is one thousand Naira per liter. Is this a nightmare? It has fuelled the acute hunger to the point of no return.
Millions of Nigerians are presently walking about like ghosts. What is written mysteriously on the faces of the masses now is “About to die.” A swollen wild animal in the forest is the hunter’s gain. Few days ago, I was walking along a popular street just to observe the feeling of the hungry masses moving about like living-dead.
I was taken aback when I saw casket markers bent on the production of quantitative and qualitative caskets. They expect massive deaths these days. Indeed, their dreams have been actualized. All over the country young and old persons are dying in great number every day. Thus the casket makers and marketers are smiling to the banks at intervals, on daily basis.
The mortuaries are full of corpses. For lack of space, the dead bodies are fighting spiritual warfare every night in the mortuaries. The morticians encounter serious sleepless nights as they engage themselves in separating the deadly nocturnal fights. One of them confided in me that he is resigning from mortuary work because one fierce corpse told him in the language of the dead, “You are about to die and join us.”
I was reclining on my bed late at night as I was cogitating and writing this. The spirits were already whistling in darkness at my window, “About to die!!!” Therefore I am stopping here today because the fear of the unknown has gripped my senses. Let me sleep before I slump and die due to hardship, hunger and exhaustion. See you next time, if death spares me!
