Nigeria Content Online

Living in America
is expensive. And dying, sweet relief, is almost impossible. America
will not let you die in peace. I have life insurance, and it is the
irony of my wretched existence than I am a million times worth more to
my family dead, than alive. As a condition for my family getting the
proceeds of this life insurance, the insurance company has expressly
forbidden me from dying. In fact any such desire expressed loudly in
the presence of the many spies working for the said insurance company
could mean cancellation of my insurance on account of the fact that I
am a certified loser.

Our insurance
company does not have to worry about rumours of my impending death. It
is impossible to die in America because the country’s afamako emergency
personnel will not let you die. Let’s say you drink yourself silly
every day, and then one day you wake up to find that your liver no
longer exists. Well, in civilised societies like Nigeria, you are dead
and your children start buying aso ebi for your funeral. They even buy
you an aso ebi for your own funeral. Your relatives who previously
declined to spit in your mouth to save your life will spend all their
life savings honouring pleasant memories of your worthless existence.

In America, say
you wake up to find that you are now missing a liver and both kidneys,
please do not start celebrating your coming rest in the arms of the
Lord. America will not let you rest in peace without a fight. As soon
as your eyes start closing, your amebo neighbour whose binoculars are
trained on your sorry behind will immediately call the emergency 9-1-1
line. “Officers, a poor black man is threatening to die! Please come
right away and get his black ass!” America will swoop on you, ambulance
wailing, police cars racing into your lawn, ruining everything, the
firefighters showing off their big red fire engines, breaking down your
doors and rescuing you from eternal bliss. If you are really dying, an
air ambulance (helicopter!) will swoop down and snatch you away to the
hospital. In America, there are helicopter pads in poor neighbourhoods,
because the poor have a bad habit of threatening to die. In Nigeria,
only the super rich have helicopter pads for ferrying them to Dubai to
take care of their skin rash. In the hospital, America will spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep you alive (sample bill: Room
and lodging per night, $10,999, one toilet roll, $1,999, Cable TV
($2,999), Internet access ($5,999 per hour), beautiful Nigerian nurses
specially flown in to understand your Ijebu accent ($6,999 per hour).
They will patch you up and then throw you back out on the streets,
alive but still hungry for death.

Many Nigerians
don’t like dying, an attitude I find very irritating since they are
fond of going to church to pray to go to heaven. I am not a Christian
but I once visited this Nigerian church in America because I had heard
they would serve pounded yam and okra soup plus bush-meat at the end of
the service. They did not, the jerks. As I was backing out of the
parking lot in rage, while texting my displeasure to my daughter
Ominira, this yeye member of the church who was not looking as she was
walking to her cheap-ass car hit my car with her big behind. She almost
destroyed my car with her industrial strength butt. Wo, she immediately
fell on the ground screaming about the devil (me!) and how death is not
her portion and how Jesus Christ will not allow her to die in the hands
of an idiot (me) and in any case if she was going to die, why be killed
by a thirty-year-old coat of many colours (my van!). The yeye woman is
from Nigeria.

Dying in my
village in Nigeria is very expensive. In my village, Made-in-Nigeria
democracy has ensured that people live impoverished lives. But once
they die, come and see wahala. The villagers form a funeral committee
called Screwing the Living and they start to demand all sorts of
nonsense from the bereaved relatives, delicacies that the deceased did
not enjoy while alive. Everyone in the village benefits. These days, my
dad Papalolo walks around the village with a spoon in his agbada pocket
in case he runs into a funeral. Funerals are expensive. That is why my
dad Papalolo will never die. I cannot afford his funeral. I don’t have
the money. Once Papalolo lands in the valley of his ancestors, I will
have him properly embalmed, dress him up nicely and sit him on his
favourite lounge chair in his veranda. I will tell everybody he is
taking a nap.

I have been rambling. This is a round-about way of saying that I
love my wife. Once, I go to our ancestors, she knows where the
insurance papers are. Woman wen dey cry dey see road. Go for it, my
queen, I love you.