What a year that just passed!
A year that caused us anxiety and fear.
Yet, we made it to 2021!
Thank you God!
Thanks for our family, friends and colleagues who made it into the new year with us.
Not forgetting the departed, especially those who died from COVID-19.
Thanks also for healthcare workers who died from the disease while trying to save lives.
Thank you still for others that left us in 2020.
Kayode Odumosu, aka Pa Kasumu, Nigerian actor.
Jimmy Johnson, aka Okoro in NTA’s the Village Headmaster.
Chico Ejiro, Nollywood filmmaker.
Majek Fashek, the rainmaker.
Sam Nda-Isaiah, publisher, Leadership newspaper.
Prof Adetokunbo Lucas, renowned public health physician, author and teacher.
Kobe Bryant, NBA star.
Sean Connery, the first James Bond.
Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther.
John Lewis, the civil rights activist.
Rocky Johnson, former wrestler.
Kenny Rogers, songwriter, and musician.
May God keep them all in his bosom.
Thank you for hope still in this pandemic.
We can smile, even if behind a facemask.
For handwashing and hand sanitizer.
Social distancing and self-isolation.
Perpetual and ineffectual curfews.
Fake COVID-19 certificates.
Conspiracy theorists and hydroxychloroquine.
Thank you for COVID-19 vaccine and its access to all.
For NCDC, CDC and WHO.
For people like Chikwe Ihekweazu, Onyema Ogbuagu and Anthony Fauci.
For names like Corona Chiazor, Quarantine Folorunsho, and Lockdown Mailafia.
Palliatives and handouts.
Virtual meetings and virtual worship.
Zoom and Google Hangouts.
Thanks for the US presidential election.
For when the popular vote and the electoral college are in sync.
For outgoing Donald Trump and incoming Joe Biden.
For the sanctity of democracy.
Thank you for Nigeria and its golden jubilee celebration.
For retaining the prize for the poverty capital of the world.
For taking the third position for the most terrorized country in the world.
For being “customer dada” on corruption with Transparency International.
Nepotism, cronyism, and tribalism.
Federal character and lopsided appointments.
Thank you for, from APC to PDP.
From PDP to APC, and back to PDP.
For transmutation, transmogrification, and metamorphosis.
For those who have given up on this country.
Thank you for our eyes that are now open.
For the will of the people.
For our votes that will one day count.
An end to Supreme Court governors.
Thank you for security for Nigerians.
Amotekun, Eastern Security Network and Shege Ka Fasa.
For kidnappers that nap while their victims escape to safety.
The abducted who disarm their abductors.
Thank you for the Kankara boys.
The Chibok girls, the Dapchi girls, and Leah Sharibu.
For books, without the haram.
Educationally advantaged states and educationally disadvantaged states.
ASUU that suspended strike after nine months, and still threatening to resume again in February.
Thank you for food security.
The borders were closed, and the borders are now reopened (without rice).
Onions that had bragging rights with a bag of rice on which costs more.
The rise and rise in the cost of cement.
The rise and rise in air fares.
The fall and fall of the naira.
Skyrocketing inflation.
The disappearing middle class.
For wicked hunger.
For epileptic power supply and epileptic fuel price.
Total blackout because the national grid has collapsed, again.
Total darkness because water has dried in the Kainji, again.
Never-ending Ajaokuta Steel Company project.
Local refineries that don’t refine oil.
Thanks for Driver’s License, Voter’s Card, and International passport.
NIN and SIM link.
BVN and bank account link.
And confusion break bones.
“Mummy calm down.”
Thank you for love of foreigners more than Nigerians.
“E shock you!”
Rail and oil pipeline from Nigeria to Niger Republic.
“Funke!”
Thank you for Act 1, Scene one: “fainting” on live TV, while being interrogated for embezzling money.
Many thanks for the not so lazy Nigerian youth.
End SARS and end to police brutality.
Issokay and Soro soke.
Thanks for questions like, “Who is bankrolling you?”
“Afi suru.”
And, “Do you know who you are talking to?”
“Nkan be”.
“You have a small mind.”
“Ibiakwa”
“I spend, I don’t take.”
“Keep lying, I’m listening.”
“I am not a poor man. I have never been and will never be.”
“Odiegwu”.
“Don’t ever try that with me again.”
“Inukwa”.
“I have a short fuse.”
“Abasi mbok”.
“You are “very stupid!!”
“Iyen tun deep”.
And, “You see your life?”
“Jesu!”
There wasn’t a country.
“You don mean it”.
This Fuji house of commotion.
“Oghene biko.”
Tales told the Nigerian electorate by moonlight.
Ripples that never stop.
Year 2023, when we shall have a new masquerade.
For those who have not given up on this country.
The cock crows at dawn.
Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow is here.
Happy New Year.
Dr Cosmas Odoemena, medical practitioner, Lagos. @ cuzdetriumph
