• Home
• Columnist
• Videos
• Artist
  • Musicians
  • Actors
  • Comedians
• Notable Nigerians
• Legend Dies
• Articles
  • Nigeria Articles
• Photos
• Submit Article

Author: Okah Ewah Edede
Posted to the web: 2/21/2006 7:01:23 AM

WALTZ   INTO   DARKNESS   AND   GLOOM 
Today, everybody is wailing, because a discordant tune was struck in life's great choral symphony. This keynote is in disharmony with life's choral cantata on the sacrosanct of life. Today, the land weeps with one great voice of dishevel and disarray cacophony. We now stare at each other with pale vacant eyes; today, we now stare hypnotically into our tea cups as if in deep hydromancy. Many are even seen raising coarse whitlowed fingers to the sky as if in eternal supplication, but if only you could move closer, you will discern that these hands are raised in anguish and despair. Hope has deserted us and gone backstage, while we are now forced into an unholy waltz with Death.
     How did we waltz into darkness? How did we gyrate ourselves in this calamity? Who was playing the pipe, and who was paying the piper? Who were in the band and, who and who were in the troupe? Who is the head trouper, and who wrote the script? For God sake, who is the doom composer of this waltz of darkness - this macabre dance of perdition? Who know the answers to these questions? Please, if you do, come out to the rostrum and give a dissertation. Don't throw a tantrum, but a little diatribe won't be a bad idea. Please, may I, take the lead to the centre-stage and do a tiny bit of dialectical duel with the heavyweights? My ink will be my bullet. My pen will be my sword. Ha! Thanks for the honour.
      Mr Aviation minister, you are the one who orchestrated this duet with the Duke of Darkness. You're the great composer, and you also played the pipe! What did you do with all the billions that has been given to you? How come there is not even a single Ambulance in the fleet of the Airport? How come we do not have a single firefighting machine and crew in our Airports? If we have, please, sir, come and show us, we have a right to know its whereabouts. I'm so sorry for being an ignoramus, but please, tell us where they were when big bird Sosoliso was engulfed in flame? How come we had to beg SHELL, a foreign oil company that pays their  dues to the Federal Government without default, to come to our rescue with their firefighting machines and their Ambulance? I'm sorry for being such a dumb ignoramus, sir, but how come it was the Rivers State Government that acted as if they were the owners of a federal property under your ministry? Where were your own Ambulance and firefighting machines hiding? Or do you want to hand-over your ministry to Odili? If that is the case, please be fast about it, because I believe the man will do a better job than you.
      Why did you sit on the security report against Sosoliso? Please, don't bring that secretary argument into play, because it won't hold water, as we all know that you are the head of that ministry. Abi, did anybody go to Ghana with a bag? I am surprised at you, Mr Aviation minister, what are you still doing in that office? Abi, you no dey mourn? Please, Oga, resign before another plane crash occurs, or do you want to knock down all the planes in the country? Please don't be too angry at me, I am only an ignoramus - a noisy one. But, if I may ask, why is it that the 'shogun' who is paying the piper, have not deemed it fit to sack this minstrel and hire a new one? Please, 'sensei' stop paying this particular minstrel, and get a better musician to do the job, unless you want him to kill us all! Please also ask him to account for all the money you have given to him. We are not paying him to compose such discordant dirge for us!
      Now, over to you, Chairman Sosoliso. how come you do not service your birds? I heard the bird carrying the innocent stopped over at Enugu before heading fatally toward Port Harcourt where it took our children to the dark beyond. I believe your pilot must have complained that there was something wrong with the bird. Or didn't you know that it was having difficulties with its landing gears? Ha! I see, you wanted  to maximize profit! But didn't it occur to you that by so doing, you were performing a waltz with Mr Death? Now, your greed have made our innocent children to gyrate into doom. Finally, because of your decayed ethnics, gloom have pervaded the land, and you now shed crocodile tears.
       At this interlude, I would love to state that now, the children of the rich have been forcefully taken, and everybody is wailing, including the mega poor, who habits at the tail end of those who live below the poverty Rubicon. They wail because they believe that life is sacrosanct and should be preserved. Yet, everyday, their own kids die of hunger, bad roads, diseases and crime, yet, nobody mourns for them! Nobody writes about it in the newspapers! Nobody holds a single one minute silence for them! Nobody declares any day(s) of mourning for them! They die, and nobody cares!
       We just have to change this system, both rich and mega poor, or else, our children won't have a tomorrow. The rich, please, don't go about fooling yourselves that you could cocoon your children from the system. One way or the other, the system has a way of gyrating into our lives, and we all waltz into darkness.
        WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE IN POLITICAL POSITIONS DOING WITH OUR MONEY?