Yes, but, when we spoke before, I told you to forget about burying without identification! Those who bury can always exhume only to rebury, if they want? Don’t worry about costs involved, the oil has not dried up? And of course you don’t want to forget that Anambra State is now in the club? Its membership has just been approved after 10 years of hard work? So you know these things have to be washed in our parts? We can bury, exhume and bury to announce our arrival and push away those who covet our natural endowments beyond the border?
Yet we need to worry about those who will consume this oil wealth? Tufiakwa! They would not all die for our carelessness? As you can see, the government has been doing everything it can since January 19, to get a lead on what happened to those 50 persons, and they are making steady progress, at least in the lapse of time? In addition no riot has broken out and no court order has come? It is a sign that they are trying their best. And you know after promising N5milion, they have been giving updates. They have opened registers around the state to receive complains.
They have drawn forensic experts from outside the state and outside the country. They have given the law enforcement agents timelines in the interest of our people. And even the law-executives are conforming. They are really doing their best. Don’t mind the disgruntled elements, biko! And if you must know their best is good enough. They are God’s gifts to Anambra. Not even this small incident of losing just 50 lives can dent their image. You need bigger disasters.
So what about you? I am glad you found Hyginus on your own. You are lucky. Don’t worry too much about Romanus, with any miracle, he may still come home. I mean not being among the dead and not being in the records of living is not the end of life. With God all things are possible. But what am I even saying; we don’t know who is among the dead. We are facing old questions each new day. It is becoming worrisome that this little mishap will not go away. Do you have the record of the living?
Even the House of Representatives decided to poke-nose into a local matter in a marginalised zone and the Senate, their sister rather than advise them, they too joined the band-wagon. Can you imagine?. Is it that they are not so busy at this time? Maybe! They did not even wait for the State House of Assembly to come back from where they went to share prostitutes’ motivation to win with Super Eagles and do their work flying investigation committees like motion papers. But then how long will they wait for the state House to say something or visit Amansea? Maybe they have adjourned sine die? Die again, as if the one on hand is not enough. If 30 house members die, the toll will increase to 90,sorry 48! Abi? 30 +18,oh yes. But what about the extra five. But Amansea is not far fro South Africa. They can still visit and go back to watch semi-finals. Or send their health committee and give them more dollars for compensation. Abi no be person die?
Oh yes I really forgot, you should have called the speaker to speak to you on their behalf and talk about the living. Anyway the actions of the executive seem to be enough because it is yielding dividends either of democracy or autocracy. My worries are getting too many, aren’t they? They say they exhumed the buried bodies, but did they? I am just thinking aloud! If the bodies were 18, why still talk about 18, when Police took away another five this week? That should be 23, by their own admission. Maybe in ‘River mathematics, 18 plus five equals 18.Shon for the Police!. Shon for the state!! Yet 23 is a joke and 18 a bigger joke. Think about 70 or more by now!!! But they say they will still test only 18 in all. Yet the 15 originally buried are still in the ground. You see my worries? So what are the pathologist testing new bodies outside old or new statistics? And where is the test going on? It is getting too complex for my small head.
But what do I do if those with bigger heads are busy now now pursuing zoning to he north rather than forensic experts to the west. What do I do if little clues at Amansea ground zero does not serve those who should burst this envelope crime? What do I do if my friends keep yabbing me for coming from a small state with a large tray of oddities? Just tell me what do I do? I know you are still griefed over Romanus, but find the nerve to advise me? Do I start screaming the chief administrator’s name, until he leaves these nocturnal meetings for 2014 in the commercial city to attend to the threat to future lives in our state?
Do I fight the health commissioner for telling three tales pointing in different directions? Do I tackle the villagers for being too vigilant? At least even if they allowed anybody to deceive us, we would feel lighter in the bliss of ignorance. Now we carry the burden of knowing what those above us would not want us and the rest out there to know and our live is no longer together.
What if I start screaming in the direction of Abuja? Will the two big houses and the President listen? Will they take me serious, when nobody else is saying or doing anything? Will they ask me to shout in the direction of Ekwueme Square, even before Rwandan Airlines are ready to fly from Johannesburg with the tenants of the State House? Will they ask me to remove those blue, red and black barricades in Amawbia and reign a blow on Bala. Bala why are my people dying? why??
So who will save my situation? Who will bell my cat? Justice beckons! Diligence calls!! Efficiency is on the altar!! I am in-between. Yet those who will help me are torn between sharing the present booties and partitioning the future games, and the dead stay dumb? Break the ice c’mon! Who killed you? You black heaps of former lives! Who donnit? Make it easy? Come to me in a dream, vision, or trance. Or are you waiting for me to be a pastor? No pray what of those villages you people boasted about? Those who amass powers that shines only with barren women? Or with men whose pens do not write well? I am confused; I hope my pastor will not misunderstand me? But is my society not confused? Many institutions; few effects? But we need to know the threat we feel to feel safe?
Is it the threat of water pollution by dead bodies on the river side? Is it the threat of chemical purifiers on the river bed? Is it for the fact that the bank of the river is in the capital territory and still faces river blindness from the water we drink? Or is it that clues leading to what we must find are in danger of being covered?
All questions few answers and this leads to the biggest threat-that my blood is pounding in my over-worked head beating for clues, where those who should make my life easy are asleep? Help me! I need you help.
I need your help. Forget Romanus a while. Just help me to help you!! B—iko!!!
Ify Odanye write from Lagos
