Sunday, April 30, 2017

THE JOYS AND BLESSINGS OF WORKING FROM HOME

Dearest Buhari, 

While your detractors cast aspersions on you in everything, all you have done since your return from London is show me how much you love me. You know I have been working from home since late 2012 and since we became a couple on May 29, 2015, I have remained at home while you have gone to the office and even travelled the world to make life better for both of us. And for this I am thankful. For all you have done for me, I am truly thankful. Now that the doctors have asked you to take it slow (I hope it has nothing to do with our love life), you have decided to work from home. Only last week you considered my feelings and asked your secretary who I have accused of theft to stop coming to work. And now this week you have decided to spend quality time at home. 

I will not ask you not to bring your files home. As long as you are here with me and I can see you all day, it is good enough for me. There is nothing so urgent at work that you cannot do from our home or even from the other room. You know we have the internet now and if they want they can always Skype you or send you documents via Dropbox. They keep complaining about the Federal Executive Council meeting which you have missed twice now. This is why your workers should learn how to use Skype. Can’t the Ministers just put a screen where your chair is and you Skype in from the bed? They don't need to see your entire body in bed. They only need to see your face. 

People worry too much. Your job as a Chief Executive does not include dancing on stage or heavy lifting. If you wanted to do a job that required your physical presence all the time, you would have become a petrol station attendant. And even that will soon change when we start building stations that have self service like the ones I saw when I was in America where you can just drive in swipe your card and fill up your tank without having to speak to another annoying human being who will ask you stupid questions or judge your clothes or hair or god forbid beg you for money. You are not a Nigerian petrol station attendant. You can work from wherever you like, even our bed. Your cabinet member, Shit-something - I forget now, the one in charge of communications… he should arrange virtual meetings. What is he waiting for? Even though I heard he is very religious and may be afraid of the internet just in case he is trying to download Skype and he mistakenly sees those pop-up ads with naked people asking if you want to meet hot women in your area. He might be afraid that this will ruin his relationship with God. But we must reassure him that he doesn't have to see pornography. Once he installs the appropriate ad blockers and avoids suspicious websites and Twitter accounts that have triple x’s in their names, like @Naijaxxx or @Ebonyxxx he and his relationship with the almighty will be fine. 

You know one of the benefits of working from home darling? I mean apart from the fact that we get to spend time together? You don't even have to shower when you Skype into work! You can just wash your face, do rub and shine like we used to do in school during harmattan when it was too cold to bath with cold water and we were too late to wait for our turn to use the stove to get hot water. You know, just wash your face and apply some cream. In fact, especially if you are sitting down, you can wear only a nice shirt, no one will know you don't have trousers or shoes on. I saw it once when I walked into in a television studio in Germany where one sports presenter was actually wearing shorts  and sneakers underneath his suit and tie. (I almost said “shower” above instead of “bath” but then I admonished myself not to lie about my humble beginnings. Because our bathroom growing up consisted of a tiny room with a hole through the wall that allowed water to flow out — like everyone in the area, we used buckets and little plastic bowls to take our bath. The closest thing to a shower we had was when it rained.)

Another advantage of working from home is that I can cook for you as you attend to files and you can smell the aroma from the kitchen, where, you know, I belong. 

I just hope these your cabinet people will grow some sense and all install Skype on their devices so that we can just move your office, maybe even permanently, to the house. You will never have to see their faces again. You won’t have to see that one that wears the red beret. 

Ps. Just a reminder about that guy whose children we killed. The Shiite man. I think it is time to let him go. Please think about it darling. Let us do justice by him. 

Pps. Also, I wanted to say I think we should send that Lai to Senegal, seeing as he thinks their jollof is better than ours, but I think his problems may originate from a deeper place. He might have grown up with wicked step brothers who spat in his jollof or maybe they didn't know how to cook at all in his family home. In any case, I think he needs therapy before he disgraces us further on international television. 

Yours lovingly,


E. 

Monday, April 10, 2017

GOD AND KARMA AND MY JET LAG


Dearest Buhari, 

Hmmmmm! So, this is the jet lag rich people’s children always talk about when they come back from America? I am in New York o and when it became morning in Nigeria I woke up even though it was still night here. Ah, my darling, now I can also be like all the cool Nigerians who, (in addition to beginning every sentence with “in America” or “when I was in America”) for 3 months after they return from the US tell everybody about their jet lag. Will I be hungry? I will say, maybe it is that jet lag from 3 weeks ago. If I come out of our “other room” and I am exhausted, I will say oh, baby, I think I have jet lag. I will wink, and you will understand. 

Play aside baby, there is something you need to attend to quickly. In fact I have WhatsApp’d you just in case this letter doesn't reach you quickly. That crazy guy who works for us in Lagos is killing people in Otodo Gbame over land o. They are driving poor people from the only livelihood they have with fire and bulldozers and bullets. I know they or their parents must have offended God or karma somehow to be poor — it is not our portion — but we should not just keep quiet while he kills people o. I don't want poor people’s blood on our hands when we are peacefully enjoying our retirement. 

Hmmmmm! Did you just hear what I heard? The Zamfara Governor in his wisdom just gave us the key to all the suffering and death that has been happening in northern Nigeria because of meningitis. You know darling, to be honest, I did not take him seriously at first, and like the Emir of Kano, I thought he was wrong and all but I think he is onto something here. He said that the reason that people in northern Nigeria were dying of meningitis was not because we were negligent and failed to prepare for it but because of all God is punishing us for all our fornication. 

Darling, wait. Just look at things from God’s viewpoint. You know how how our northern Nigeria has changed and young people are now fornicating like never before, hooking up using BBM and 2go and Facebook and WhatsApp. The same hands they use to say their prayers they now use to touch each other (and even touch themselves, because technically, touching yourself is also fornication — I promise while I am away in New York I will not touch myself. These American people won’t know what to do if I catch meningitis). Imagine how you feel just reading this. Then imagine if you had the power to see all the fornication that was happening as if it were on one screen, like CCTV. You too would be quite upset. We should be lucky God did not send a flood or something like that. That would have been worse. The only thing I wish is, that God would turn his attention a little from punishing fornication to punishing theft. At least then that criminal grasscutter secretary of yours would not be whistling gospel songs every morning when we all know he is a thief. He would have been struck with meningitis by now, and by his twisted neck everyone would have know the thief. I am really just happy that we are both in a godly relationship and don't have to bother about catching meningitis. 

So I heard that the court has let go of all the people we reported for stealing from us. If you ask me the real problem is not the court but the foolish lawyers who handled the cases. Instead of them to settle down and do the work that we asked them to do, they prefer to do gra-gra and be boasting and then in the end, the court throws out our cases. 

Can I just say, thank God for small mercies? You know how we have been going through a rough patch recently, and with you being away and people talking nonsense about that, and us being low on food and kidnappers running wild in our neighborhood, I just realized the most unlikely thing to cushion the effect. Even on weekends when there is no food, or when our security guards kill someone, once there is football, all people are concerned with is whether Arsenal won or lost and whether Manchester United scored or not. I think we should make it easier for our workers and children to have access to international football. Also, this game called Big Brother. Even the most serious members of our house, they can spend all day arguing about what essentially is a game with a few adults locked up in a house where they drink and dance and fight and talk rubbish and some even say fornicate (I hope the God of Governor Yari doesn't visit them with meningitis). So, you have everyone glued to this game and even if there is no food, people will be fine once they can watch Big Brother. These things work like magic. (But now that Big Brother has ended have to find something else to keep the people entertained o).

I hear that people are attacking and killing our relatives in India and South Africa. Shouldn't we do something about this? Why do we let them just disrespect us? Me, if you ask me, I think it is the way we let these idiots run amok in our own house, thieves and rapists and criminals. If there was justice at home, maybe people would respect us a bit and not just think they can easily kill us wherever we are. 

I heard one of the guards, the man from the Navy, they say he shot himself. But we know that he was investigating other guards. And suddenly he turned up dead and some people want us to believe he killed himself. Please when you have the time look into the matter. 

I am traveling next week to America darling. What do you want me to buy for you? I know you don't like expensive things but I insist on buying something for you my dear. Let us talk about it when we see later. 

I hope you were able to see the doctors that came. Please don’t forget to take your drugs. 

Ps. I wont get tired of saying this. Let us release that man whose children we killed, the Shiite man. I don't want him to die in our custody. That would be bring bad karma for us. And me I don't like bad karma. 

Yours forever,
E.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

THANKS FOR STAYING BUBU.


Dearest Buhari,

You may not realise it, but you made my week. You have proved your love for me. You have shamed all the naysayers. Our love will last forever. For this single act of yours — not traveling to London like every hater thought you would — you have won my heart. You have shown that no expense is too big for you to keep spending quality time with me. I know we will have to take money from running the house to fly in the doctors from London together with all their equipment but it is worth it. Some people want us to tell them how much we are spending to bring in a foreign doctor, but is it their business? And is it their money? 

I know some people will say that well, you should build a hospital here that is good enough bla bla bla, but I say those people should mind their business. You build a hospital here and one day you will be naked on the operating table and that is how naked photos of you will end up on the internet. Because yes that is how Nigerians are. They cannot keep a secret. 

I know people were waiting for you to leave again so they could come and try to woo me so that I can leave you. But you have shocked them. Thank you my darling. I will clear out the boys quarters and ask some of the workers to vacate their rooms for the doctors and their equipment. 

You know that political hustler? Nodee? The one who lied about having degrees from Harvard just because he visited for one week and bought stickers from their shop? The one who replaced his older dark skinned battered wife for a brand new light skinned bae? (I mean that one didn't last too but that is not the point). He is there with his friends making a mockery of our house. Instead of them to do the job we sent them to do, they are spending time on useless things. Maybe we should close this our Senate already. Because really what is the use of having a Senate in our house? With the billions we spend yearly on these immature people, what do we get in return? Anyway darling, that is something I think we should talk about after you finish eating and taking your drugs. 

Our security men have detained another person, a woman this time, for writing something. I really think this is a distraction. We have more serious issues, like armed robberies, people trying to kidnap our children, some of our workers fighting naked in the street, our gardener (who is also an Apostle of his own church) impregnating young girls, having threesomes and ejaculating on their backs, the herdsmen in front of our house clashing with the farmers, you know, important things. We can’t be having them detaining people for saying things they don't like. 

Darling, I know the drugs you are taking make you tired and you cannot love me like you used to or work for many hours a day but I will just list the normal reminders so that whenever you can, we can sort them out. 

THE GRASS CUTTER (To be fired)
He is still there flaring his nose, singing praise and worship songs in the morning when he washes your car by my window. It still annoys me that the thief is still acting like a man of God. 

THE AUDITOR (Clarify Status)
The guy who checks for economic crimes is still there hanging. The workers don't want to let him in to do his job because they think he will finger them in some fraud. Look I know he himself is not clean but you need to step in as the head of this house and make a decision. Either we get a new auditor or you put your foot down and walk him into the house yourself. You have to say something. 

THE GUY WHOSE CHILDREN WE KILLED (Release) 
You haven't said anything about this. He is blind. We have murdered 80% of his family. Maybe it is time to release him. I know you do not like him or the way he prays, but this is not reason for us to keep him or kill his people. I know you are not a bad man and that he provoked you, but you have to show you are bigger than this. It is time to let this go. 

THE HOUSE OUR SECURITY MEN DESTROYED BY MISTAKE (Reparations)
I think you should visit that house in Rann which our security men set on fire by mistake and killed hundreds of people. They say it was a mistake and we should do something about it. Visit them. Or at least send your deputy. They need to be taken care of. 

THE HERDSMEN IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE (Delineate land) 
This is the one that worries me a lot darling. The way things are going, our entire house will be affected by this crisis if we do not call the herdsmen and the farmers and settle things once and for all. After all it is our land and we cannot continue to act like it does not concern us. And especially as the herdsmen are your brothers, this is the time to sit them down and intervene so they do not have to take laws into their hands when someone kills their cows or hurts their children. We must talk about the land and come to an agreement about how to farm and graze without conflict like we used to do in the old days when we were both young and you used to carry me on your shoulders. 

I hope these reminders don't irritate you my love. I have put a pot of tea in the bedroom. Use the honey. I hear it is better than sugar. 

Love always

Ps. I bought new massage oils. You’ll love them. Can’t wait.


E.