|
Dear God By Muhammad Fa’iz It
is becoming increasingly difficult to write anything about Where
do I start? I pray dear God that today NEPA, that has seen over N20
billion spent on it over the past five years, will
give me light for at least eight hours in the day (half
current will do. As they say half a loaf is better than none). This
will enable me iron my clothes for tomorrow’s work and maybe my
children will be able to do their homework. I
also pray that today the PPPRA (am I right) will not allow market forces to get carried away and
increase the price of fuel which has already been increased by about 60%
in the last six months. The last increase affected me badly by hiking
the prices of all goods and services. (my
Okada rider that takes me to work and my kids to school increased his
fare) Dear
God I want you to look at me mercifully and enable my father-in-law who
worked for 35 years in the federal civil service to get his pension so
that the little that my wife and I earn will not be further depleted by
having to cater for him. I
had wanted to send my children to a public school but everyone said that
the students population was too high given the poor infrastructure and
there was thus a high risk of one form of epidemic or the other. This
has meant that I have had to look for more money to ensure that my son
that is going into secondary school can attend one of those so called
private schools. My
daughter that has gotten admission into university was told that she has
to pay N100,000.00 for a bed space (market forces again) and in order
that she does not fall foul of those roaming (and rather shameless)
sugar daddies I had to sacrifice my car to enable her get the room (
I have applied for another car loan and maybe I will be able to afford
another Tokunbo car) O
dear God, I hope that tonight is not another night where I will not be
able to sleep due to one operation by a gang of armed robbers in my
neighbourhood due to a total breakdown in law and order (I
suspect that some of the policemen are actually thinly disguised
thieves) Dear
God, I had actually thought of checking out (ala
Andrew) but I have been told that my PHD will not be recognized
anywhere else but in I
also pray God, that my children do not fall ill, as I cannot afford the
quack clinics and the government run hospitals are fast collapsing and
they do not have the necessary drugs to cater for the sick and dying. I
also pray that our dear President, Mr. Obasanjo will not come up with a
scheme that will involve billions of Naira, that ordinarily should be
used for providing services. I
hope he will not decide that he needs to make a scapegoat of someone
that has rubbed him the wrong way and thus create a crisis that most
rational leaders would be looking to avoid. I
also hope that he will one day come to my neighbourhood to see how I
live rather than fly to All these are part of my daily prayers and am sure most Nigerians (at least 95% of us) say the same prayer day in and day out. Amen. |