Mazeed Mukhtar Oyeleye writes,
"I think stupidity is a criterion of employment in electricity distribution companies. If there is anything their staff have proven to be good at, it is showcasing crassitude," a friend lucky enough to reach me via phone call, whined.
His words smelt of the reality I have been fortunate to escape since the benevolent merchant of Wuhan visited Nigeria. If anything is keeping me from changing my address to a dog-eared page, then it is the anomaly of the NEPA in charge of my area.
I remember how swiftly I espoused returning to challenge death and mayhap earn interment at the epicentre of Covid19; my Oldman would rather see me bite the dust than get a whiff of such. The bottom line is, the last time my sneakers hung out with the talc-like soil of Birnin-Shehu sparsed from days into months and I fear lest it arrives the half-season mark before one's nostrils get to guzzle oxygen-ore without earning mandatory estrangement from one's folks.
The luck of belonging in the mince sandwiched between introversion and extroversion has turned out one helluva cup-of-tea for me during this lockdown. My eyes have seen better days, bereft of scores of Bollywood choreographies, Hollywood hostilities, Animation fantasies and Nollywood necromancies. My mind suffers asphyxia induced by the monotony of sojourning through cities in the heads of notable Pen-dragons while searching for his lost muse who used to kiss him whenever he was in the company of nature.
I now find succour in imitating a frog in search of a cool pond to swim; hopping on one link from another, so as not to earn myself the 'intruder' label in the many webinars I crashed. My ears have emaciated from refusing to feed on any more inspirational blunder incapable of cajoling Covid19 out of reach of Homo-sapiens. My skin has forgotten how eventful the camaraderie of the Lagos sun used to be, just as my feet relived three full moons of shuffling across only tiles since unbecoming a neonate.
My fingers have lost the pleasure in shtupping a pen round after round spanning into hours of taking down notes. The guy imprisoned in my cranium misses being multitasked like a core i9 PC since God sentenced him to serve terms with hard labour. My reading glasses confessed to missing the tormenting sight of white-paged materials it used to scan involuntarily.
This crazy couple, living close to my chin, miss separating from each other to help my tongue convey words to human folk outside the pentagon of kin I share a roof with.
From my monocle, lockdown should be the first word listed as a synonym of boredom, because it holds the highest academic title in that respect.
Thanks to the NEPA in charge of my vicinity (where the octopus named Covid19 palliatives has refused to extend his relieving tentacles to) for being abnormally dutiful with ample power supply or SMS notifications to explain their actions otherwise.
Thanks to sleep for being the only hospital ready to admit one rejected by other healthcare facilities (activities) but at the cost of time with which one can accomplish meaningful tasks.
The Covid19 induced lockdown has done well in exposing the canard cloaked in the 'I can not do without...' clause. Also, our failure as a nation is no more a Southwestern moonlight folklore but a jab in the face of Nigerians and Biafrans alike. I pray God heals the world soonest before the term 'humanity' will leave the earth on indefinite vacation.
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