But I have to write to my mother: I am sorry mum that I will not be home again this year. I am always happy to see you and I am sure that seeing me always lift your spirit and soul too. My presence brings youthfulness to your face and joy to your heart. I am so sorry but I’ll talk to you on the phone as often as I can during this period and on Christmas day. Tell daddy of my constant love, my affection and my wonderful thoughts of the entire family. I know money is not everything still I will send you a lot of it by western union. Yemi will collect them or I’ll send Efosa. It will not bring happiness but it will make you proud of me. You have always trusted me as a dependable son and I will always love you as the best parents money cannot buy or substitute.

I have to write to my friends too: Please tarry long for me and remind yourselves of the good times that we have spent together-in church, at school, on the stone field, in the park, at vibration beer and peppersoup joint, and all those endless treks on the dusty roads in Festac. Please forgive me that I would not be hosting you at my usual end of year party from my meager GA or PTA salary. Our gatherings were of course more important than our poor salaries. You’ll always be on my mind, in good times and in bad times. I will always cherish our warm companies-the ones from suya joints, from akara joints, from poff-poff joints, in Biodun’s garage at Ileya festival, from the aboki bread-egg-and-tea joint and all those escorts to those beautiful girls we didn’t get to marry. Remember my tears from last Christmas and my fears from the dark nights and flying bullets. Gbenga, remember how horrified we received live news about the shootings at Fluor Mill in Apapa as we drove on those dangerously rough roads! Imagine my fears that Christopher our good friend was going to die after he was shot at close range right there in our common neighborhood! Thank you for those visits to my folks, for your care and for your unending struggles down town. I am so please that I can send all of you emails in one click and share wonderful pictures with you. What about meeting me on Facebook and joining my networks? I created some for us.

I must write to my only residence in Nigeria-Festac Town. You are simply the only home that I have in Nigeria. I cannot lay claim to Ogun State, I have no idea of its layout. It’s you festac that I know, it’s you I love and it’s you I long to protect. Even though you have finally lost your glory like the rest of them, you’ll always be close to my heart. I’ll miss you this year because you don’t have a white Christmas. You’re lying in ruins now; you stink of sewage and you harbor criminals. I’ll miss my game on the stone field and I’ll surely miss those endless parties at this time of the year. I’ll miss all the courageous sojourners who would be coming home from Europe, Asia and America. They will parade their jeeps and jeans, shapely girls will flock around them, they will buy drinks and lodge in hotels, they will paint you red and leave you just the same way they meet you. They have done so forever. Oh Festac, I’ll miss you because of a white Christmas!

Nigeria, I don’t like to talk about you again because of the anger in my soul but there is no way I will finish why I prefer a white Christmas without sending a note to you. You gave me no choice this time but to stay 6, 051 km away. Just 3 years ago, I dreamt of seeing you every 6 months but your sailing attitude drifted us apart beyond my imaginable dreams. You even allowed a snail to take charge of your sailing; I am very convinced you will never arrive unless you find or elect the right sailor to guide you. Why did you do this to me? Didn’t I tell you that I’ll do my best for you, that I’ll give you back more than you gave me? Didn’t I give you 10 years of my 30 years already before I left with a promise to do much more when I get back? Why have you decided to take the drift on the path we didn’t plan? You betrayed me and I cannot live any longer under the same roof with a promise-breaker. Yes, keep my friends, keep my family though they deserve better than you are giving them. No, I’ll not forget them and I’ll not take them away even I can. I’ll not even forget my neighbors’ children. The likes of them represent the unquenchable hope of tomorrow. I know what tomorrow holds and I’m doing all I can to deliver it to them. My absence doesn’t signify cruelty or indifference; it means I’ll be back. You know I’m not the useless type who sits on a fence. I am still very conscientious.

However, don’t forget me Nigeria before or after your re-awakening or revolution. Don’t forget my children and the children of my children. Don’t you ever dare to forget all your children whom you’ve succeeded in dispersing to an imaginary space called Diaspora. They will be thinking about you, they’ll keep looking at you from a distance until you beckon to them, until you have made yourself a home again. When you become sensible enough that your future had always been at the tip of your fingers, then you’ll realize that there was no point to drift away from your foundations in the first place. For now, I have stopped dreaming of a white Christmas, I am going to experience it again like I did before. I love your dusty harmattan but I hate all that comes with it-home and bank robberies, violent deaths, disasters, road accidents, missing persons, scary rumors of missing body parts, police brutality, high cost of food and clothes, traffic madness, new year old resolutions, empty promises, useless state and federal budgets, pipeline explosions, fuel scarcity and the mad rush at market places. I hate it when all you do is to use your non-existent rule of law to mock me and remind me of my impoverishness in the midst of plenty. How can you justify my thirst at the time that I lived next to the Atlantic? Wait, I’ll be back, it started to snow again and I want to play

Robot  # 1 | 16.11.2007 10:01

In 2006, I spent my ...Read the full article.