You may remember my friend Uwa Ezuoke, the celebrated columnist and commentator on affairs public and private, domestic and international. During the war he was a Biafran commando, and he came out of that fratricidal fray with his nerves frayed. After passing through Gowon’s famous 3-R shock treatment he was “reconstructed, reconciled and rehabilitated.” Trouble was, occasionally his psychic wounds opened and flared out, and then you couldn’t tell which side he was on.
We were at my house just relaxing, talking the usual ogburu onye ogburu onye, when he threw this shocker.
“You know, O. J., I’ve been thinking…”
“Thank God somebody is thinking around here,” I said. “We’re all starting to look like a nation of zombie.”
“You know how, when a national hero dies, or some major disaster occurs, a country will sometimes fly its flag at half-mast and declare a national day of mourning. . . .”
“Thank God that doesn’t happen often,” I said. “I can’t remember the last time we had one.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking . . . the way things are going, Nigeria ought to declare a national day of mourning every day for the next ten years.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“And I mean 387 days of every year.”
“Man, you do say the most outrageous things!”
“Ikom mbakara! Mr. Big Grammar! Tell me,” and he bared his fangs and flicked his head right and left with each syllable, “what is ouch-ghey-josh about that?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, first of all, my friend, in case you’ve forgotten, there’s only 365 days in every year, plus an extra day every four years.”
“That’s not enough! Nigeria must have 22 extra days.”
“But Uwa, these things are established by law.”
“Whose law? Don’t give me that rule of law rubbish.”
“Watch your mouth, man. . . So rude! . . . Anyway, these things are established by custom. Nigeria cannot get extra days.”
“O. J.,” he insisted, “you just don’t understand. Our grief is so deep we must have 22 extra days each year in order to finish our lamentations.”
I had to think how to get his claws off this trunk. I struggled to gather my thoughts. “Em . . . em . . . for that, you have to go to the World Court.”
“You mean where we couldn’t even win simple Bakassi?”
“That’s right. Now you tell me what chances we have of winning 22 extra days a year at the World Court.”
He chewed this for a minute. “That’s going to be tough, but not impossible. Nigeria is built tough.”
“I don’t care what you say, man. Nigeria cannot afford to be out of step with the rest of the world.”
“Nigeria is already out of step with the rest of the world,” he said.
“That means we will accumulate a deficit of days.”
“Yeah, to match our deficit of pride.”
This conversation was dampening my spirit.
“OK, OK. Chin up, boy!” he said. Apparently he’d noticed. “Nigeria is a world-power-to-be!”
“That’s more like it,” I said. “But I guess we first have to win the Olympics.”
“Japan didn’t win the Olympics,” he said.
“Well, Nigeria has to be first in something. . . . Don’t laugh, Uwa, but, you know, for years I’ve wanted to go in for a laughing competition. I think they have one in Bangkok—or is it in Hong Kong?”
“Actually, crying is more in our line, now that you mention it,” he said. “We can be the crying champion of the world.”
I looked to see if he was laughing. He wasn’t.
“But that sport is not even in the Olympics,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter. Charity begins at home. Why don’t we organize a crying competition. Right here in the National Theatre!”
Uwa Ezuoke was laughing his head off.
“OK, O. J. So you don’t like a crying competition. And you don’t want a national day of mourning ten years long. How about this: let’s institute a National Award in various categories of print journalism . . .”
“Now you’re talking! I’m sure I’ll win something . . .”
“The newspaper or magazine with the highest number of pages of moaning, groaning and weeping editorials and op ed articles; the highest number of pages of reports of monies stolen; the reports with the largest aggregate amount of monies stolen; the longest list of culprits who got away with it; and the shortest list of public officers—LG chairmen, state commissioners, governors, board members, heads of parastatals, ministers, senators, state and national assembly representatives, advisers, and presidents—who have never been charged with looting, stealing, or misappropriating public funds.”
I was furious. “Go home, man! Get out of my house. . . .”
Onwuchekwa Jemie
