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Dear 43-year-old me,
Peace, King.
By the time you are reading this, 20 years must have expired. It may barely seem so, but as they say "time flies".
As you read, you would swoop back on these same huge flappy wings of time and be amazed at just how far you have come in such a short time. After all, it is memories of the early years that bring mist in the eyes of grown men.
I know that mushy beard of yours is now flecked with grey. Don't fret, It is a family thing; big bro is barely 30 but the grey has already taken over. Mum says it's the sign of a boy who's done a man's job
It is November 2023 and we had a new government barely five months ago. The now not-so-new president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, floated the Naira but the flimsy thing has been wrecked seriously by the gargantuan waves of the Dollar in the parallel market so he is now planning to buy a yacht, for surely this presidential "plaything" would float thematically whilst the new minimum wage structure to keep with skyrocketing oil prices and food inflation, is still being drawn by slow and dizzy ministerial committee members.
Petrol is 667 Naira per litre at the pump and almost every other item has nearly doubled in cost; it is the toughest we've had in this country since I was born. But Lengdung Tungchamma, that amiable Jenta bibliophile who has jokes daily on Facebook, posted a picture three days ago of him seated in some cool place with a soft drink by the side and captioned it "infinite optimist". I guess I should do the same, perhaps with a bottle of Elu jeje instead to allegorize how bitter and red-eye serious the situation has become.
But I'm no optimist. I'm not inclined to be hopeful nor to necessarily "expect" good outcomes. On this point I agree with Mark Manson completely; why hope for better when you just can be better?
Don't hope.
Don't despair, either.
Just be incurably curious.
Because hope fails; it has already failed me. Sometimes "maturing" means that you replace expectation with appreciation, for the process (the experience) is what matters above all else; not the outcome. Alternatively, this is called living. And what am I doing on God's green earth and using up valuable oxygen if I am not living?
Like the memoirist John Muir, I step into the jungle with nothing more than my journal and a childlike sense of wonder.
So here's the strategy;
As a recent graduate, broke and with no employment, it is hard not to have second thoughts about the value of a degree in this country. But then I applied for another degree programme, an LLB at the University of Abuja. Things are rough but we have to get tough and get right otherwise we'll get left.
Some civil ills are happening all around me that I think will be better tackled with the legal might of a judge's gavel than Instagram posts with smart captions. I do not doubt that I have the natural muscle to break a few bones in such a constricted and well-regulated combat, being a coward as I am. Side-by-side, cowardice and wisdom are hard to tell apart, so a wise man once said. That is why I refer to myself thus —a coward. Now whatever you conclude that I am depends on whether you agree with the wise man or not; do some thinking.
My good friend, the cherished Moses Afashima, tells me the legal profession and I are a match made in heaven and I'm certainly not sure yet but I'm excited; if school is a scam, then I'm a sucker; no protest there. We plan on going in together at the same time, provided we both get admitted. If then, the country better watch out for the potential fiercest litigators it has seen yet. Moses Afashima stands, stooped at 6 ft 4 inches, and takes off pillaging verbally through the lexicon whilst blowing fire with facts and figures and citations out of his mouth like a thousand-year-old dragon suddenly let loose from its cave. It's good that we already plan to be a team because I wouldn't wish to be on the other line of the battle for the life of me. In 20 years, we'd be proper "rainmakers", if you remember that breezing read by John Grisham well.
Also, I will be closing this year on the landmark 1,000 books read. And I will be reading 150 more every year so that in 10 years I will have read nothing less than 1,500 books; in 20 years that is 3000 books read. Accumulatively, in 20 years I would have read 4000 or more books in my life. The goal is to be in that time what Lengdung Tungchamma is now —a walking and talking Library of Congress.
As I read, however, I would, in the manner of a generously tipping gentleman, write and publish a few books of mine for posterity. Let me let you in on a little secret quickly; I would rather not write if I could. But there comes a newborn idea twisting and kicking, a clueless government begging criticism, a supremely endowed and graceful damsel deserving encomiums; all these keep pulling, nagging, and tugging until I pick up the pen and then it all bursts out in a zombie apocalypse of repressed expression —it is practically an orgasmic release.
Right now there's a book tugging and kicking to be written —the Biography of Wantaregh Paul Unongo, perhaps the last of the first nationalists who majestically passed away a year and a half ago. Afashima and I are preparing to begin on it and after publishing, we would levitate to writers with "belly". I would thenceforth, commence a historical fiction novel series about colonial West Africa. By then, having already eclipsed Chimamanda Adichie as the "voice" from Africa, I should ascend the Pantheon of literary divinities, taking my place alongside W. S (no, not William Shakespeare, the other W.S —Wole Soyinka), Byron, Bacon, Achebe, and Hemingway.
Meanwhile, there is this pepper processing outfit I'm actively seeking investors to launch in Benue state. You know, Benue fascinates me. For a region that leads in the production of many crops in the continent (as for yam, Benue is its highest producer in the world), there is no food processing company in it. The agricultural sector, the state's fattest asset, is neglected by both government and private investors. If the United Nations people see the amount (close to half of the total yield) of fresh food that goes to waste littered all over the streets each harvest season due to lack of preservative means when the world is battling hunger and food insecurity, they will faint.
In the case of pepper for example —while a whole bag of fresh pepper is sold sometimes for as low as 2,000 Naira in the wet season, the same people would have to buy the dry chilli for 200 Naira or more for barely a palm-full from merchants from faraway Sokoto and Adamawa in the dry seasons.
Out of a puff of smoke and blazing pyrotechnics, this is where I come in. Processing the chilli right in Benue would cut huge transportation costs and I'll be able to offer my people the product at a much lower price while making the same profit margin. Besides, the potential market is enormous, with Benue recording an estimated number of 1.2 million homes according to an EU survey back in 2016, 80% of which according to my projections prefer the chilli to can pepper.
I hope (well, I have to hope after all) to get rich by this business and marry a pulchritidinous chic, black as bitter chocolate, with long straight legs, and a backside as majestic as a dome (the kind which adorned the glory days of Rome) and if God be so kind to bless us with children looking like her, I'll be doubly glad, for you see I'm ugly enough. And ugly people hate mirrors.
I get toxic sometimes but I'll be a solid husband to my hubby and a wise and dedicated father to my children like Dad was to me.
Also, I will make Mum laugh more. I do try, but when it's a good thing, more is always better than less.
I will be a better friend to my friends, more empathetic, generous, and utterly laid back.
If we haven't already, my man Afashima and I should be walking the highest corridors of Benue politics at this time and carrying out aggressive agricultural and social reforms.
On this hopeful note, I'll sign out the same way that I opened, saying —peace, King.
Even if you don't achieve all these, the process of trying should form your legend. As the Bhagavad Gita proclaims; "a man who attempts great things cannot be underrated."
Yours sincerely,
KX.
Note: This was initially published as an entry to the Turn Every Page writing competition arranged by Lengdung Tungchamma.
N.R. Earley Jacquline Dacres bluesapphire Afashima Moses Joshua Godwin Sophia Tell- Stories 🤓📢🤓 You all think I have a chance at winning this competition?
