It’s 5:00 am your alarm sounds interrupting your AC filled dream with the reality of the heat swarming your bedroom.
You enter the shower, the water is not running, sadly your landlord forgot to turn on the pump and he padlocks it every damn time. You have to rush down to the well to fetch your water “secondary school” style.
You shower with that one bucket, mizing [sic] it meticulously, with that one bucket you will shit, flush, bath and brush.
You step out of the shower, and the siren goes off, you know that sounds, it’s the beautiful sound of NEPA has bought light. You turn on your fan, but your fan has barely rotated 361 degrees before NEPA takes the light back.
NEPA was just fucking with you…torturing you.
At this point your body is wet, you try your hardest to wipe the water from your body although you are not sure its bath water or your sweat you are wiping off …evil NEPA won’t let you know the difference.
You get out of the house, after running through a maze of locks and padlocks, your only defensive system against being robbed at night. After getting out Maze-runner style you finally experience the fresh breeze of … Carbon Monoxide as the generator ushers you to your car. Your place of solitude, where you can block out the chaos.
You jump in and crank the engine up, your car revs to life. The radio blares, the AC is on full blast, the engine oil is topped off, no check light Engine is on … for a full minute you are in paradise, you enjoy the cool feel of Freon on your tortured skin until reality hits…E-reality … as in EMPTY. No fuel! Your gauge is stuck on E.
So you have to walk to the nearest bus stop where you will be quoted the Black Market price. You have no option but to pay. You enter the the bus, hoping to grab a window seat, your source of artificial breeze, but everyone wants that same spot. So instead you are stuck in the middle. Its like NEPA is following you everywhere…like that MTN jingle … everywhere you go…
It’s been a crazy morning, and you manage to arrive at work 5 minutes late. You have barely sat on your seat, before boss lady/man who is not really your boss is giving you shit. Piles of shit. So much shit you can quit your job and start a fertilizer farm.
But you stay on your seat this … is the Nigerian dream…at least the AC is working, you have internet, your bosses might be crazy, they might scream at you…micromanage you, but you go through that shit for the sake of the Nigerian dream. Time crawls and eventually 5 pm hits, but you know that you can’t leave at 5 pm.
What are you crazy!
Nigerian work is about suffering, you stay late, 6:30 pm is your closing time, you stay behind to look busy. Everybody does and your crazy boss he loves it…because it shows dedication, he stays behind also except that his house is next door!
So after all the bullshit eye-service is over…you board the bus only to get stuck in traffic….3rd mainland traffic, Ring road traffic, PH traffic, just good old Nigerian traffic, God blessed us with this.
You get home at 10 pm, you eat fast, because you know in 1 hour the generator will be off … you make it just in time, you lay your head on the bed and before you know your alarm clock is fucking you in the ear…its another 5:00 am in Nigeria!
Okechukwu Ofili is an author, speaker, and blogger and a The Trent Elite Voice. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or subscribe to his blog for more honest talk and as @ofilispeaks on Instagram for more sketches! To bring Ofili to your school or organization as a speaker simply go here. His third book How Intelligence Kills was published in December 2013, order it at http://bit.ly/intelligencekills.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
