Number 56

It was 5:17am when the alarm on my bedside clock woke me up in it’s third attempt. I had successfully ignored the first ring set for 5:10am and the next five minutes later. What kept me from getting up was still unknown to me, I wasn’t particularly enjoying my sleep. In fact I barely slept. The running shoes I left in my bag was constantly invading my memory and interrupting my thoughts. I couldn’t wait for that alarm to go off so I’d hit the road and like they say, leave it all on the track.

I’ve been bothered with a lot of things lately and I resorted to aggressively reducing the good food I ate opting instead to go for anything that would keep my stomach full but with zero nutrition. I’ve done this for weeks now, it’s what I call my fitness diet for times when I get so busy I can’t find time to exercise. It stops me from putting on considerable weight. I’ve put off a lot of things to make time for this morning run. It’s not the kind of running you see celebrities do and share on social media, I have to run to stay healthy.

Knowing all this and having made considerable effort to schedule this run, what kept me on the bed must be very serious but I had no idea as of yet.

I rolled over and I could feel my feet trying to touch the floor but then again it felt like that was the only part of my body that was interested in keeping me fit and healthy, every other part was in cohort with this thing; whatever it was that won’t let me be great.

I started to think about my life and how fast things are moving, so fast I sometimes can’t seem to catch up. How did I get here? How did I become so sought after that I’m getting called from States I’ve never been to (and honestly don’t want to visit).

Is is because I’m getting older? Are things falling in place by themselves? Is that possible? Anyways, I stood up and grabbed my phone determined to do what I needed to do. I was sure once I hit play on my uber motivational playlist handpicked by my friend who claims to be better than DJ Jimmy Jatt that I’d be on the road in a flash.

“Hello, good morning and happy indepence day”, that was my voice assistant and then it hit me like ice-cold water on an harmattan morning in Jos. This is what has been weighing me down, it’s our independence anniversary again. How old is Nigeria now I thought, I think I stopped counting some years ago. Well I’ll just do a search on the Internet and I’ll get that answer.

Wow, 56 years since our founding fathers hoisted the flag of independence. I tried to imagine how that day felt for them. Did they ever stop to think that they might not achieve all they hoped to achieve by sending the colonialists away? Where they so confident that they didn’t spare a moment for such kinds of thinking? I assumed they were and I wanted to blame them. I wanted to blame them for not having an actual plan beyond independence. I wanted to liken them to Moses in the bible fable about the Israeli people moving to Canaan from Egypt. Yes, didn’t Moses lead them in circles for forty years? Wasn’t that journey supposed to take 40 days? There has to be a hall of fame for leaders who lead their people astray and Moses has to be the Grand-Patron. Heck, they should have an Order and Moses should be the Grand-Patron.

I don’t want to sulk today, I don’t want to cancel my schedule and groan about how I’m having to endure life in Nigeria even though somewhere in the constitution I’m guaranteed dignity. The only dignity you can have is the one you manufactured with bare hands.

My shoes are laced, I can’t find one of my earphones, I know this was the grand design of Apple Inc when they took away the cord just because they want to appear innovative. Apple and their tricks will not kill us. Do I even blame them, why are there no Nigerian phone companies?

The perfect track comes up as I hit play; Age is Just a Number. My mind wandered away trying to imagine how the person who wrote this song got the inspiration.