It is silly season again in Nigeria! In Europe, spring is reputed to be a season for renewed passion among lovers and aspiring lovers, and so Europeans usually say that love is in the air whenever the season comes round each year...Not surprisingly, Nigeria doesnt need to have spring, since sex is practised as a year-long sport by the vast majority of Nigerians, including a number of men whose physical capacity for lovemaking has long been eroded by age and poor health. Thank God, however, Nigerians never like to be outdone in any field, whether it comes to rapid multiplication of fast food Oklahoma chicken joints or importation of ugly Hummer jeeps. We must always be out there in front jostling for leadership positions, including in the finer arts of fraudulent scam, otherwise known as 419.It is therefore only to be expected that Nigeria has found a local substitute for the spring season. The annual fun period that knowledgeable Nigerians all over the country look forward to eagerly each year is known as the silly season. However, like many things Nigerian, the silly season cannot be pinned down precisely, as it tends to occur at unpredictable times of the year. This year, the Nigerian silly season began a little over two weeks ago.It began in Abuja with an annual ritual involving a gathering of a highly predictable group of high-flying jokers who gather each year to peer into murky crystal balls in order to announce the present and future state of the Nigerian economy.Since it has long been evident that these distinguished folks live on some far off planet from which they peer intermittently at Nigeria through worn-out telescopes that appear to have been purchased second hand from Jankara market, it comes as no surprise to hear them proclaim unfailingly, year after year, that the Nigerian economy is doing extremely well, and that our dearly beloved nation is poised to leap into the forefront among the best performing economies in the world. To hear them speak, China and India are living in a world of mirage induced by over-indulgence in marijuana, since Nigeria is finely poised to overtake them at any moment now, regardless of the fact that unemployment figures in Nigeria are currently nearing the 70 per cent level, and irrespective of the fact that there is very little electricity in the country, or that health services and motorable roads are few and far between in present day Nigeria. Why should such minor details matter'Obviously, anyone who still believes that beggars would ride and gallop all over the place if wishes were horses has yet to visit the wonderful land of Nigeria, where logic never minds being stood on its head! To prepare the ground for this years silly season proper, the Nigerian nation was in fact heartened to learn that a group of wonderfully endowed Nigerian officials had somehow achieved the extraordinary feat of sending no fewer than three intergalactic satellites into orbit at one blow, only for us to learn much later on that two out of the three heroic satellites had somehow got "lost" in outer space, although no one has yet got round to explaining what kind of data the advanced Nigerian satellites were expected to be transmitting back to earth : Information about the technique of assembling bicycles, perhaps' Anyway, the current silly season achieved a well deserved climax a few days ago when a medal award ceremony was held somewhere in the nations capital, Abuja, allegedly with some input from the multi-talented U.S.-based comedian Eddie Murphy, whose services suddenly became available when he was unceremoniously dropped from taking on the role of MC at the forthcoming Oscar awards ceremony in Los Angeles.It is widely rumoured that it was Murphy, (no doubt borrowing a leaf from the late Charlie Chaplin), who advised that the actual medals for most of the awards should be cloaked in invisibility during the ceremony itself, on the basis that it might hurt the eyes of most of the awardees if they were actually to behold the priceless medals that were supposed to be draped round their necks. It was also rumoured that the shock of seeing themselves in possession of some of the highly coveted tin foil medals might have induced heart attacks among some of the less deserving of the awardees, who apparently never imagined that they would ever get to be so highly honoured for some of their past (mis)deeds...Dr. Balogun, a filmmaker and musician, wrote in from Lagos, via balogunda@yahoo.com
Click here to read full news..
